Blasphemy

Synopsis:

The world’s biggest supercollider, locked in an Arizona mountain, was built to reveal the secrets of the very moment of creation: the Big Bang itself. The Torus is the most expensive machine ever created by humankind, run by the world’s most powerful supercomputer. It is the brainchild of Nobel Laureate William North Hazelius. Will the Torus divulge the mysteries of the creation of the universe? Or will it, as some predict, suck the earth into a mini black hole? Or is the Torus a Satanic attempt, as a powerful televangelist decries, to challenge God Almighty on the very throne of Heaven? Twelve scientists under the leadership of Hazelius are sent to the remote mountain to turn it on, and what they discover must be hidden from the world at all costs. Wyman Ford, ex-monk and CIA operative, is tapped to wrest their secret, a secret that will either destroy the world. . . or save it. The countdown begins. . .

BLASPHEMY

By

Douglas Preston

Copyright © 2008

For Priscilla, Penny, Ellen, Jim, and Tim

1

JULY

KEN DOLBY STOOD BEFORE HIS WORKSTATION, his smooth, polished fingers caressing the controls of Isabella. He waited, savoring the moment, and then he unlocked a cage on the panel and pulled down a small red bar.

There was no hum, no sound, nothing to indicate that the most expensive scientific instrument on earth had been turned on. Except that, two hundred miles away, the lights of Las Vegas dimmed ever so slightly.

As Isabella warmed up, Dolby began to feel the fine vibration of her through the floor. He thought of the machine as a woman, and in his more imaginative moments he had even imagined what she looked like—tall and slender, with a muscular back, black as the desert night, beaded with sweat. Isabella. He had shared these feelings with no one—no point in attracting ridicule. To the rest of the scientists on the project, Isabella was an “it,” a dead machine built for a specific purpose. But Dolby had always felt a deep affection for the machines he created—from when he was ten years old and constructed his first radio from a kit. Fred. That was the radio’s name. And when he thought of Fred, he saw a fat carroty-haired white man. The first computer he had built was Betty—who looked in his head like a brisk and efficient secretary. He couldn’t explain why his machines took on the personalities they did—it just happened.

And now this, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator . . . Isabella.

“How’s it look?” asked Hazelius, the team leader, coming over and placing an affectionate hand on his shoulder.

“Purring like a cat,” said Dolby.

“Good.” Hazelius straightened up and spoke to the team. “Gather round, I have an announcement to make.”

Silence fell as the team members straightened up from their workstations and waited. Hazelius strode across the small room and positioned himself in front of the biggest of the plasma screens. Small, slight, as sleek and restless as a caged mink, he paced in front of the screen for a moment before turning to them with a brilliant smile. It never ceased to amaze Dolby what a charismatic presence the man had.

“My dear friends,” he began, scanning the group with turquoise eyes. “It’s 1492. We’re at the bow of the Santa Maria, gazing at the sea horizon, moments before the coastline of the New World comes into view. Today is the day we sail over that unknown horizon and land upon the shores of our very own New World.”

He reached down into the Chapman bag he always carried and pulled out a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. He held it up like a trophy, his eyes sparkling, and thumped it down on the table. “This is for later tonight, when we set foot on the beach. Because tonight, we bring Isabella to one hundred percent full power.”

Silence greeted the announcement. Finally Kate Mercer, the assistant director of the project, spoke. “What happened to the plan to do three runs at ninety-five percent?”

Hazelius returned her look with a smile. “I’m impatient. Aren’t you?”

Mercer brushed back her glossy black hair. “What if we hit an unknown resonance or generate a miniature black hole?”

“Your own calculations show a one in quadrillion chance of that particular downside.”

“My calculations might be wrong.”

“Your calculations are never wrong.” Hazelius smiled and turned to Dolby. “What do you think? Is she ready?”

“You’re damn right she’s ready.”

Hazelius spread his hands. “Well?”

Everyone looked at each other. Should they risk it? Volkonsky, the Russian programmer, suddenly broke the ice. “Yes, we go for it!” He high-fived a startled Hazelius, and then everyone began slapping each other on the back, shaking hands, and hugging, like a basketball team before a game.

FIVE HOURS AND AS MANY BAD coffees later, Dolby stood before the huge flat-panel screen. It was still dark—the matter–antimatter proton beams had not been brought into contact. It took forever to power up the machine and cool down Isabella’s superconducting magnets to carry the very large currents necessary. Then it was a matter of increasing beam luminosity by increments of 5 percent, focusing and collimating the beams, checking the superconducting magnets, running various test programs, before going up to the next 5 percent.

“Power at ninety percent,” Dolby intoned.

“Christ damn,” said Volkonsky somewhere behind him, giving the Sunbeam coffeemaker a blow that made it rattle like the Tin Man. “Empty already!”

Dolby repressed a smile. During the two weeks they’d been up on the mesa, Volkonsky had revealed himself as a wiseass, a slouching, mangy specimen of Eurotrash with long greasy hair, ripped T-shirts, and a pubic clump of beard clinging to his chin. He looked more like a drug addict than a brilliant software engineer. But then, a lot of them were like that.

Another measured ticking of the clock.

“Beams aligned and focused,” said Rae Chen. “Luminosity fourteen TeV.”

“Isabella work fine,” said Volkonsky.

“My systems are all green,” said Cecchini, the particle physicist.

“Security, Mr. Wardlaw?”

The senior intelligence officer, Wardlaw, spoke from his security station. “Just cactus and coyotes, sir.”

“All right,” said Hazelius. “It’s time.” He paused dramatically. “Ken? Bring the beams into collision.”

Dolby felt a quickening of his heart. He touched the dials with his spiderlike fingers, adjusting them with a pianist’s lightness of touch. He followed with a series of commands rapped into the keyboard.

“Contact.”

The huge flat-panel screens all around suddenly woke up. A sudden singing noise seemed to float in the air, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“What’s that?” Mercer asked, alarmed.

“A trillion particles blowing through the detectors,” said Dolby. “Sets up a high vibration.”

“Jesus, it sounds like the monolith in 2001.”

Volkonsky hooted like an ape. Everyone ignored him.

An image appeared on the central panel, the Visualizer. Dolby stared at it, entranced. It was like an enormous flower—flickering jets of color radiating from a single point, twisting and writhing as if trying to tear free of the screen. He stood in awe at the intense beauty of it.

“Contact successful,” said Rae Chen. “Beams are focused and collimated. God, it’s a perfect alignment!”

Cheers and some ragged clapping.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Hazelius, “welcome to the shores of the New World.” He gestured to the Visualizer. “You’re looking at an energy density not seen in the universe since the Big Bang.” He turned to Dolby. “Ken, please increase power in increments of tenths to ninety-nine.”

The ethereal sound increased slightly as Dolby worked on the keyboard. “Ninety-six,” he said.

“Luminosity seventeen point four TeV,” said Chen.

“Ninety-seven . . . Ninety-eight.”

The team fell into tense silence, the only sound now the humming that filled the underground control room, as if the mountain around them were singing.

“Beams still focused,” said Chen. “Luminosity twenty-two point five TeV.”

“Ninety-nine.”

The sound from Isabella had become still higher, purer.

“Just a moment,” said Volkonsky, hunching over the supercomputer workstation. “Isabella is . . . slow.”

Dolby turned sharply. “Nothing wrong with the hardware. It must be another software glitch.”

“Software not problem,” said Volkonsky.

“Maybe we should hold it here,” said Mercer. “Any evidence of miniature black hole creation?”

“No,” said Chen. “Not a trace of Hawking radiation.”

“Ninety-nine point five,” said Dolby.

“I’m getting a charged jet at twenty-two point seven TeV,” said Chen.

“What kind?” asked Hazelius.

“An unknown resonance. Take a look.”

Two flickering red lobes had developed on either side of the flower on the central screen, like a clown’s ears gone wild.

“Hard-scattering,” said Hazelius. “Gluons maybe. Might be evidence of a Kaluza-Klein graviton.”

“No way,” said Chen. “Not at this luminosity.”

“Ninety-nine point six.”

“Gregory, I think we should hold the power steady here,” said Mercer. “A lot of stuff is happening all at once.”

“Naturally we’re seeing unknown resonances,” Hazelius said, his voice no louder than the rest, but somehow distinct from them all. “We’re in unknown territory.”

“Ninety-nine point seven,” Dolby intoned. He had complete confidence in his machine. He could take her to one hundred percent and beyond, if necessary. It gave him a thrill to know they were now sucking up almost a quarter of the juice from Hoover Dam. That was why they had to do their runs in the middle of the night—when power usage was lowest.

“Ninety-nine point eight.”

“We’ve got some kind of really big unknown interaction here,” said Mercer.

“What is problem, bitch?” Volkonsky shouted at the computer.

“I’m telling you, we’re poking our finger into a Kaluza-Klein space,” said Chen. “It’s incredible.”

Snow began to appear on the big flat panel with the flower.

“Isabella is behave strange,” said Volkonsky.

“How so?” Hazelius said, from his position at the center of the Bridge.

“Glacky.”

Dolby rolled his eyes. Volkonsky was such a pain. “All systems go on my board.”

Volkonsky typed furiously on the keyboard; then he swore in Russian and whacked the monitor with the flat of his hand.

“Gregory, don’t you think we should power down?” asked Mercer.

“Give it a minute more,” said Hazelius.

“Ninety-nine point nine,” said Dolby. In the past five minutes, the room had gone from sleepy to bug-eyed awake, tense as hell. Only Dolby felt relaxed.

“I agree with Kate,” said Volkonsky. “I not like the way Isabella behave. We start power-down sequence.”

“I’ll take full responsibility,” said Hazelius. “Everything is still well within specs. The data stream of ten terabits per second is starting to stick in its craw, that’s all.”

“Craw? What means ‘craw’?”

“Power at one hundred percent,” said Dolby, a note of satisfaction in his laid-back voice.

“Beam luminosity at twenty-seven point one eight two eight TeV,” said Chen.

Snow spackled the computer screens. The singing noise filled the room like a voice from the beyond. The flower on the Visualizer writhed and expanded. A black dot, like a hole, appeared at the center.

“Whoa!” said Chen. “Losing all data at Coordinate Zero.”

The flower flickered. Dark streaks shot through it.

“This is nuts,” said Chen. “I’m not kidding, the data’s vanishing.”

“Not possible,” said Volkonsky. “Data is not vanish. Particles is vanish.”

“Give me a break. Particles don’t vanish.”

“No joke, particles is vanish.”

“Software problem?” Hazelius asked.

“Not software problem,” said Volkonsky loudly. “Hardware problem.”

“Screw you,” Dolby muttered.

“Gregory, Isabella might be tearing the ‘brane,” said Mercer. “I really think we should power down now.”

The black dot grew, expanded, began swallowing the image on the screen. At its margins, it jittered manically with intense color.

“These numbers are wild,” said Chen. “I’m getting extreme space-time curvature right at CZero. It looks like some kind of singularity. We might be creating a black hole.”

“Impossible,” said Alan Edelstein, the team’s mathematician, looking up from the workstation he had been quietly hunched over in the corner. “There’s no evidence of Hawking radiation.”

“I swear to God,” said Chen loudly, “we’re ripping a hole in space-time!”

On the screen that ran the program code in real time, the symbols and numbers were flying by like an express train. On the big screen above their heads, the writhing flower had disappeared, leaving a black void. Then there was movement in the void—ghostly, batlike. Dolby stared at it, surprised.

“Damn it, Gregory, power down!” Mercer called.

“Isabella not accept input!” Volkonsky yelled. “I lose core routines!”

“Hold steady for a moment until we can figure out what’s going on,” said Hazelius.

“Gone! Isabella gone!” said the Russian, throwing up his hands and sitting back with a look of disgust on his bony face.

“I’m still green across the board,” said Dolby. “Obviously what you’ve got here is a massive software crash.” He turned his attention back to the Visualizer. An image was appearing in the void, an image so strange, so beautiful, that at first he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He glanced around, but nobody else was looking: they were all focused on their various consoles.

“Hey, excuse me—anybody know what’s going on up there on the screen?” Dolby asked.

Nobody answered him. Nobody looked up. Everyone was furiously busy. The machine sang strangely.

“I’m just the engineer,” said Dolby, “but any of you theoretical geniuses got an idea of what that is? Alan, is that . . . normal?”

Alan Edelstein glanced up from his workstation distractedly. “It’s just random data,” he said.

“What do you mean, random? It’s got a shape!”

“The computer’s crashed. It can’t be anything but random data.”

“That sure doesn’t look random to me.” Dolby stared at it. “It’s moving. There’s something there, I swear—it almost looks alive, like it’s trying to get out. Gregory, are you seeing this?”

Hazelius glanced up at the Visualizer and paused, surprise blossoming on his face. He turned. “Rae? What’s going on with the Visualizer?”

“No idea. I’m getting a steady blast of coherent data from the detectors. Doesn’t look like Isabella’s crashed from here.”

“How would you interpret that thing on the screen?”

Chen look up and her eyes widened. “Jeez. I’ve no idea.”

“It’s moving,” said Dolby. “It’s, like, emerging.”

The detectors sang, the room humming with their high-pitched whine.

“Rae, it’s garbage data,” Edelstein said. “The computer’s crashed—how can it be real?”

“I’m not so sure it is garbage,” said Hazelius, staring. “Michael, what do you think?”

The particle physicist stared at the image, mesmerized. “It doesn’t make any sense. None of the colors and shapes correspond to particle energies, charges, and classes. It isn’t even radially centered on CZero—it’s like a weird, magnetically bound plasma cloud of some kind.”

“I’m telling you,” said Dolby, “it’s moving, it’s coming out. It’s like a . . . Jesus, what the hell is it?” He closed his eyes hard, trying to chase away the ache of exhaustion. Maybe he was seeing things. He opened them. It was still there—and expanding.

“Shut it down! Shut Isabella down now!” Mercer cried.

Suddenly the panel filled with snow and went dead black.

“What the hell?” Chen cried, her fingers pounding the keyboard. “I’ve lost all input!”

A word slowly materialized in the center of the panel. The group fell into silence, staring. Even Volkonsky’s voice, which had been raised in high excitement, lapsed as if cut off. Nobody moved.

Then Volkonsky began to laugh, a tense, high-pitched laugh, hysterical, desperate.

Dolby felt a sudden rage. “You son of a bitch, you did this.”

Volkonsky shook his head, flapping his greasy locks.

“You think that’s funny?” Dolby asked, getting up from the workstation with clenched fists. “You hack a forty-billion-dollar experiment and you think it’s funny?”

“I not hack anything,” said Volkonsky, wiping his mouth. “You shut hell up.”

Dolby turned and faced the group. “Who did this? Who messed with Isabella?” He turned back to the Visualizer and read out loud the word hanging there, spat it out in his fury. GREETINGS.

He turned back. “I’ll kill the bastard who did this.”

2

SEPTEMBER

WYMAN FORD GAZED AROUND THE 17TH Street office of Dr. Stanton Lockwood III, science adviser to the president of the United States. From long experience in Washington, Ford knew that while an office was designed to show the outer man, the public man, it always betrayed somewhere the secret of the inner man. Ford cast his eyes about, looking for the secret.

The office was done up in that style Ford called IWPB—Important Washington Power Broker. The antiques were all authentic and of the finest quality—from the Second Empire desk, as big and ugly as a Hummer, to the gilded French portico clock and the hushed Sultanabad rug on the floor. Nothing that hadn’t cost a bloody fortune. And of course, there was the obligatory “power wall” of framed diplomas, awards, and photographs of the office’s occupant with presidents, ambassadors, and cabinet members.

Stanton Lockwood wanted the world to see him as a man of importance and wealth, powerful and discreet. But what came through to Ford was the grimness of the effort. Here was a man determined to be something he wasn’t.

Lockwood waited until his guest was seated before he eased himself into the armchair flanking the other side of a coffee table. He crossed his legs and smoothed a long white hand down the crease in his garbardine pants. “Let’s dispense with the usual Washington formalities,” he said. “I’m Stan.”

“Wyman.” He settled back and observed Lockwood: handsome, late fifties, with a hundred-dollar haircut, his fitness-club physique beautifully draped in a charcoal suit. Probably a squash player. Even the photo on the desk of three perfect towheaded children with their attractive mother had all the individuality of a financial-services advertisement.

“Well,” said Lockwood, in a meeting-now-under-way tone, “I’ve heard excellent things about you, Wyman, from your former colleagues at Langley. They’re sorry you left.”

Ford nodded.

“So awful what happened to your wife. I’m so terribly sorry.”

Ford willed his body not to stiffen. He never had been able to figure out a way to respond when people mentioned his dead wife.

“They tell me you spent a few years in a monastery.”

Ford waited.

“The monastic life not to your liking?”

“It takes a special kind of person to be a monk.”

“So you left the monastery and hung up your shingle.”

“A man’s got to make a living.”

“Any interesting cases?”

“No cases at all. I’ve just opened the office. You’re my first client—if that’s what this is about.”

“It is. I have a special assignment for you, to start immediately. It will last for ten days, maybe two weeks.”

Ford nodded.

“There’s a little catch I need to mention up front. Once I’ve described the assignment, rejecting it is not an option. It’s in the United States, it doesn’t involve risk, and it won’t be difficult—at least in my opinion. Succeed or fail, you can never talk about it, so I’m afraid you can’t use it to buff up your résumé.”

“And the remuneration?”

“One hundred thousand dollars cash under the table, plus an aboveboard G-11 salary commensurate with your cover position.” He raised his eyebrows. “Ready to hear more?”

No hesitation. “Go ahead.”

“Excellent.” Lockwood slid out another folder. “I see you have a B.A. in anthropology from Harvard. We need an anthropologist.”

“Then I’m afraid I’m not your man. That was just my B.A. I went on to MIT and took a doctorate in cybernetics. My work for the CIA was mostly in cryptology and computers. I left anthropology far behind.”

Lockwood waved his hand dismissively, his Princeton ring flashing in the light. “Not important. Are you familiar with, ah, the Isabella project?”

“Hard to avoid hearing about it.”

“Forgive me if I repeat what you already know then. Isabella was completed over two months ago—at a cost of forty billion dollars. It’s a second-generation superconducting supercollider particle accelerator. Its purpose is to probe the energy levels of the Big Bang and explore some exotic ideas for generating power. This is the president’s pet project—the Europeans just completed the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and he wanted to maintain America’s lead in particle physics.”

“Naturally.”

“Getting Isabella funded was no cakewalk. The left carped that the money should have been spent on the halt and the lame. The right whined that it was just another big-government spending program. The president steered a course between Scylla and Charybdis, rammed Isabella through Congress, and saw it to completion. He sees it as his legacy and he’s anxious to have it running smoothly.”

“No doubt.”

“Isabella is essentially a circular tunnel, three hundred feet underground and forty-seven miles in circumference, in which protons and antiprotons are circulated in opposite directions at almost the speed of light. When the particles are brought into collision, they duplicate energy levels not seen since the universe was a millionth of second old.”

“Impressive.”

“We found a perfect site for it—Red Mesa, a five-hundred-square-mile tableland on the Navajo Indian Reservation, protected by two-thousand-foot cliffs and riddled with abandoned coal mines, which we converted to underground bunkers and tunnels. The U.S. government pays six million a year in leasing fees to the Navajo tribal government in Window Rock, Arizona, an arrangement which was most satisfactory to all parties involved.

“Red Mesa is uninhabited, and there’s just one road to the top. There are a few Navajo towns near the base of the mesa. These are traditional people—most of them still speak Navajo and live by herding sheep, weaving rugs, and making jewelry. That’s the background.”

Ford nodded. “And the problem?”

“In the past few weeks, a self-proclaimed medicine man has been stirring up people against Isabella, spreading rumors and misinformation. He’s gaining traction. Your assignment is to deal with the problem.”

“What’s the Navajo government doing about it?”

“Nothing. The Navajo tribal government is feeble. The former tribal chairman was indicted for embezzlement, and the new chairman’s just taken office. You’re on your own with this medicine man.”

“Tell me about him.”

“His name is Begay, Nelson Begay. Not clear how old he is—we haven’t been able to turn up a birth certificate. Claims the Isabella project is desecrating an ancient burial ground, that they were still using Red Mesa for grazing sheep, and so on. He’s organizing a horseback ride in protest.” Lockwood pulled a soiled flyer from a folder. “Here’s one of his notices.”

The blurry photocopy showed a man on horseback holding a protest sign.

RIDE TO RED MESA!

STOP ISABELLA!

SEPTEMBER 14 & 15 Protect the Diné Bikéyah, the Land of the People! Red Mesa, Dzilth Chíí, is indwelled by the sacred Pollen Being who brings forth flowers and seeds. ISABELLA is a mortal wound in her side, spilling radiation and poisoning Mother Earth. Join the ride to Red Mesa. Meet at the Blue Gap Chapter House, Sept. 14 at 9:00 A.M., for the ride up the Dugway to the old Nakai Rock Trading Post. Camp at Nakai Rock with Sweat Lodge and one-night Blessing Way. Take back the land with prayer.

“Your assignment is to join the scientific team as the anthropologist and establish yourself as a liaison with the local community,” said Lockwood. “Address their concerns. Make friends, calm everyone down.”

“If that doesn’t work?”

“Neutralize Begay’s influence.”

“How?”

“Dig some dirt out of his past, get him drunk, photograph him in bed with a mule—I don’t care.”

“I’m going to consider that a feeble attempt at humor.”

“Yes, yes, of course. You’re the anthropologist; you’re supposed to know how to handle these people.” Lockwood’s smile was bland, generic.

Silence gathered. Ford finally asked, “So what’s the real assignment?”

Lockwood clasped his hands and leaned forward. The smile widened. “Find out what the hell’s really going on out there.”

Ford waited.

“The anthropology bit is your cover. Your real assignment must remain absolutely secret.”

“Understood.”

“Isabella was supposed to be calibrated and online eight weeks ago, but they’re still messing around with it. They say they can’t get it to work. They have every excuse under the sun—bugs in the software, bad magnetic coils, leaky roof, broken cable, computer problems. You name it. At first I bought the excuses, but now I’m convinced I’m not getting the real story. There’s something wrong—I just think they’re lying about what it is.”

“Tell me about the people.”

Lockwood leaned back, inhaled. “As you certainly know, Isabella was the brainchild of the physicist Gregory North Hazelius, and he leads a hand-picked team. The best and the brightest America has to offer. The FBI vetted them thoroughly, so there’s no question of their loyalty. In addition, there’s a senior intelligence officer assigned by the Department of Energy, and a psychologist.”

“DOE? What’s their involvement?”

“One of the major research goals of the Isabella project is to look for exotic new forms of energy—fusion, mini black holes, matter–antimatter. DOE’s nominally in charge, although—if I may be frank—I’m running the show at this stage.”

“And the psychologist? What’s his role?”

“It’s like the Manhattan Project out there—isolated, high security, long hours, no families permitted. A high-stress environment. We wanted to make sure nobody went nuts.”

“I see.”

“The team went out there ten weeks ago to get Isabella up and running. It was supposed to take two weeks maximum, but they’re still at it.”

Ford nodded.

“Meanwhile, they’re burning a hell of a lot of electricity—at peak power, Isabella eats up the megawattage of a medium-sized city. They run the damn machine at a hundred percent power again and again, all the while claiming it isn’t working. When I press Hazelius for details, he has answers for everything. He charms you and cajoles you until he convinces you black is white. But something’s wrong and they’re covering it up. It could be an equipment problem, a software problem—or, God knows, a human problem. But this comes at a terrible time. It’s September already. The presidential election’s in two months. This would be a hell of a time for a scandal.”

“Why the name Isabella?”

“The chief engineer, Dolby, the guy who headed the design team, nicknamed it that. It sort of stuck—sounded a lot better than SSCII, the official name. Maybe Isabella’s his girlfriend or something.”

“You mentioned a senior intelligence officer. What’s his background?”

“Tony Wardlaw’s the name. Former Special Forces, distinguished himself in Afghanistan before joining the DOE’s Office of Intelligence. First-rate.”

Ford thought for a moment, and then spoke. “I’m still not sure, Stan, what makes you think they’re not telling the truth. Maybe they really are having the problems you mentioned.”

“Wyman, I’ve got the best bullshit meter in town, and that’s not Chanel Number Five I’m smelling out in Arizona.” He leaned forward. “Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are sharpening their long knives. They lost the first time around. Now they smell a second feeding.”

“Sounds just like Washington: build a machine for forty billion dollars and then kill the funding to run it.”

“You got that right, Wyman. The only constant in this town is its yearning for imbecility. Your assignment is to find out what’s really going on and report back to me personally. That’s it. Don’t take any action on your own. We’ll handle it from here.”

He went to his desk, pulled a stack of dossiers from a drawer, and smacked them down beside the phone. “There’s one here for each scientist. Medical records, psychological evaluations, religious beliefs—even extramarital affairs.” He smiled mirthlessly. “These came from the NSA, and you know how thorough they are.”

Ford looked at the top dossier, opened it. Stapled to the front was a picture of Gregory North Hazelius, an enigmatic look of amusement dancing about in his brilliant blue eyes.

“Hazelius—you know him personally?”

“Yes.” Lockwood dropped his voice. “And I want to . . .caution you about him.”

“How so?”

“He has a way of focusing on a person, dazzling him, making him feel special. His mind burns with such incredible intensity that it seems to throw a spell over people. Even his most offhand comment seems charged with hidden importance. I’ve seen him point out something as common as a lichen-covered rock and speak about it in a way that makes you feel that it’s extraordinary and filled with wonder. He showers you with attention, treats you as if you’re the most important person in the world. The effect is irresistible—something a dossier can’t capture. This may sound odd, but it’s . . . it’s almost like falling in love, the way the man draws you in and lifts you out of the humdrum world. You have to experience it to understand. Forewarned is forearmed. Keep your distance.”

He paused, looking at Ford. The muffled sounds of tires, car horns, and voices from the street seeped into the silence. Ford clasped his hands behind his head and looked across at Lockwood. “The FBI or the intelligence arm of the DOE would normally conduct an investigation of this kind. Why me?”

“Isn’t it obvious? There’s a presidential election in two months. The president wants this thing fixed fast, on the quiet, with no paper trail. He needs speed and deniability. If you screw up, we don’t know you. Even if you succeed, we don’t know you.”

“Yes, but why me specifically? I’ve got a B.A. in anthropology and that’s it.”

“You’ve got the background—anthropology, computers, ex-CIA.” He pulled a dossier out of the pile. “And you have another asset.”

Ford didn’t like the sudden shift in tone. “Meaning?”

Lockwood pushed the folder across the table to Ford, who opened it and stared at the photograph stapled to the inside cover—a smiling woman with glossy black hair and mahogany eyes.

He slapped it shut, pushed it back at Lockwood, and rose to go. “You call me in here on a Sunday morning and pull a trick like this? Sorry, I don’t mix work with my personal life.”

“It’s too late to withdraw.”

A cold smile. “You going to stop me from walking out?”

“You were CIA, Wyman. You know what we can do.”

Ford took a step forward, towering over Lockwood. “I’m trembling in my boots.”

The science adviser looked up, hands clasped, smiling mildly. “Wyman, I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing for me to say. But you of all people should know the importance of the Isabella project. It’ll open the doors on our understanding of the universe. Of the very moment of creation. It could lead us to an unlimited source of carbon-free power. It would be a huge tragedy for American science if we flushed that investment down the toilet. Please do this—if not for the president or for me, then for your country. Isabella, quite frankly, is the best thing this administration has done. It’s our legacy. When all the political sound and fury has passed, this is the one thing that will make a difference.” He passed the folder back to Ford. “She’s the assistant director of Isabella. Thirty-five now, Ph.D. from Stanford, a top string theorist. What happened between you and her was a long time ago. I met her. Brilliant, of course, professional, still single, but then I don’t suppose that’ll be an issue. She’s an entrée, a friend, someone to talk to—that’s all.”

“Someone to pump for information, you mean.”

“The most important scientific experiment in human history is at stake.” He tapped the dossier, then raised his eyes to Ford. “Well?”

When Ford returned the gaze, he noticed that Lockwood’s left hand was nervously caressing a pebble that had been sitting on the desk.

Lockwood followed his eyes and smiled sheepishly, as if having been caught. “This?”

Ford could see a sudden guarded look in Lockwood’s eyes. “What is it?” he asked.

“My lucky stone.”

“May I see it?”

Lockwood reluctantly passed the stone to Ford. He turned it over to see a small fossil trilobite embedded in one side.

“Interesting. Any special meaning?”

Lockwood seemed to hesitate. “My twin brother found this the summer we turned nine, gave it to me. That fossil is what started me on the road to science. He . . . drowned a few weeks later.”

Ford fingered the stone, polished by years of handling. He had found the inner man—and, unexpectedly, he liked him.

“I really need you to take this assignment, Wyman.”

And I need it, too. He laid the rock gently on the desk. “All right. I’ll do it. But I work in my own way.”

“Fair enough. But don’t forget—no action on your own.”

Lockwood rose and pulled a briefcase from his desk, shoved in the dossiers, shut and locked it. “In there you’ll find a satellite phone, laptop, orientation packet, wallet, money, and your official cover assignment. A helicopter’s waiting. The guard outside my office will escort you. Your clothing and sundries will be sent separately.” He locked the briefcase and gave the dial a twirl. “The combination is the seventh to tenth digits of the number pi.” He smiled at his cleverness.

“What if we don’t agree on the meaning of ‘no action on my own’?”

Lockwood shoved the briefcase across the desk. “Remember,” he said, “we never knew you.”

3

BOOKER CRAWLEY LEANED BACK IN HIS Grundlich CEO chair and studied the five men seating themselves around the bubinga-wood conference table. In his long and fruitful lobbying career, Crawley had learned that you can indeed judge a book by its cover, at least most of the time. He looked at the man opposite him with the preposterous name of Delbert Yazzie, taking in his watery eyes and sad face, the off-the-rack suit, the belt buckle sporting a half pound of silver and turquoise, the cowboy boots that appeared to have been resoled several times. Yazzie, in short, looked manageable. He was a rube, a hayseed Indian playing cowboy who had somehow found himself the newly elected chairman of the so-called Navajo Nation. Previous employment: school janitor. Crawley would have to explain to Yazzie that in Washington, people made appointments. They didn’t just show up—especially on a Sunday morning.

The men seated to Yazzie’s left and right formed the so-called Tribal Council. One looked like a real live Injun, with a beaded headband, long hair tied up in a bun, velvet Indian shirt with silver buttons, and turquoise necklace. Two wore JCPenney suits. The fifth man, suspiciously white, sported a tailored Armani suit. That would be the guy to watch out for.

“Well!” said Crawley. “I’m delighted to meet the new leader of the Navajo Nation. I didn’t know you were in town! Congratulations on your election—and to all of you, members of the Tribal Council. Welcome!”

“We’re pleased to be here, Mr. Crawley,” said Yazzie, his voice low and neutral.

“Call me Booker, please!”

Yazzie inclined his head, but did not offer to be called by his own first name. Well, no wonder, thought Crawley, with a name like Delbert.

“Can I offer anyone a drink? Coffee? Tea? Pellegrino?”

Everyone wanted coffee. Crawley pressed a buzzer, gave the order, and a few minutes later his man came in pushing a cart loaded with a silver coffeepot, creamer, sugar bowl, mugs. Crawley watched with a shudder while teaspoon after teaspoon of sugar crystals slid into the blackness of Yazzie’s coffee, five in all.

“It’s been such a pleasure for me personally to work with the Navajo Nation,” Crawley continued. “With Isabella almost up and running, this is truly a moment of celebration for all of us. We value our relationship with the Navajo people and look forward to working with you for a long time to come.”

He leaned back with a friendly smile and waited.

“The Navajo Nation thanks you, Mr. Crawley.”

Nods and murmurs of approval went around the table.

“We’re grateful for all you’ve done,” Yazzie continued. “The Navajo Nation feels a great satisfaction in being able to make such an important contribution to American science.”

He spoke in a slow, deliberate way, as if he had rehearsed the words, and Crawley felt a small, cold place harden in his gut. They might want to chisel his fees. Well, they were welcome to try—they had no idea who they were dealing with. What a bunch of sand monkeys.

“You’ve done an excellent job getting Isabella sited on our land and negotiating fair terms with the government,” continued Yazzie, his sleepy eyes raised toward Crawley, but somehow not quite on him. “You did what you said you would do. This is something new in our experience in dealing with Washington. You kept your promises.”

Was that all this visit was about? “Thank you, Mr. Chairman, that’s most kind. I’m delighted to hear it. We certainly do keep our promises. I have to tell you quite frankly that the project involved a lot of hard work. If I may be forgiven a little self-congratulation, this was one of the most challenging lobbying projects I have ever been involved in. But we pulled it off, didn’t we?” Crawley beamed.

“Yes. We hope the compensation you received was a sufficient return for your work.”

“As a matter of fact, the project was far more expensive at our end than we anticipated. My accountant has been in a foul mood these past weeks! But it’s not every day we can help American science while bringing jobs and opportunity to the Navajo Nation.”

“Which brings me to the subject of our visit.”

Crawley sipped from his mug. “Fine. Love to hear it.”

“With the work completed and Isabella running, we no longer see the need to continue with your services. When our contract with Crawley and Stratham expires at the end of October, we will not be renewing.”

Yazzie spoke so bluntly, with so little finesse, that it took Crawley a moment to absorb the blow, but he kept his smile steady.

“Well, now,” he said, “I’m very sorry to hear that. Is it anything we did—or failed to do?”

“No, it’s just as I said: the project’s completed. What’s left to lobby?”

Crawley took a deep breath and set down the mug. “I don’t blame you for thinking that—after all, Window Rock is a long way from Washington.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Chairman. In this town, nothing is ever completed. Isabella isn’t actually online yet, and there’s an old K Street saying that goes, ‘There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.’ Our enemies— your enemies—have never given up. Many in Congress are still itching to kill the project. That’s the way it is in Washington—never forgive, never forget. Tomorrow they could introduce a bill that would cut funding for Isabella. They might try to renegotiate the lease payments. You need a friend in Washington, Mr. Yazzie. And I’m that friend. I’m the man who kept his promises. If you wait until bad news reaches Window Rock—it’ll be too late.”

He watched their faces, but could read no reaction. “I would strongly recommend that you renew the contract for at least six months—as a form of insurance.”

This man Yazzie was as inscrutable as a damned Chinaman. Crawley wished he were still working with the previous chairman, a man who liked his steaks rare, his martinis dry, and his women well-lipsticked. If only he hadn’t been caught with his hand in the tribal cookie jar.

Yazzie finally spoke. “We have many pressing needs, Mr. Crawley—schools, jobs, health clinics, recreational facilities for our youth. Only six percent of our roads are paved.”

Crawley held his smile as if for a camera. The ungrateful sons of bitches. They were going to collect their six million a year from now until doomsday, and he would get none of it. But he hadn’t been lying—this lobbying assignment had been a bitch-ride from start to finish.

“If this ‘slip twixt the cup and lip’ should occur,” Yazzie continued, in his slow, sleepy fashion, “we would call on your services again.”

“Mr. Yazzie, we’re a boutique lobbying firm. There’s just me and my partner. We take only a few clients, and we have a long waiting list. If you drop out, your slot will be filled immediately. Then, if something happens and you need our services again, well—?”

“We’ll take the risk,” said Yazzie, with a dryness that goaded Crawley.

“I might suggest—indeed I strongly recommend—continuing the contract for another six months. We could even discuss renewing it at a half-retainer. That would at least keep your seat at the table.”

The tribal leader looked at him steadily. “You were well compensated. Fifteen million dollars is a lot of money. In looking over your billable hours and expenses, some questions come to mind. But that is not of concern to us at the present time—you succeeded and we’re grateful. We’ll leave it at that.”

Yazzie rose, then the others.

“Surely you’ll stay for lunch, Mr. Yazzie! My treat, of course. There’s a fabulous new French restaurant just off K Street, Le Zinc, run by an old frat buddy. They do a mean dry martini and steak au poivre combo.” He had never known an Indian to turn down a free drink.

“Thank you, but we have much to do here in Washington and can’t spare the time.” Yazzie extended his hand.

Crawley could hardly believe it. They were leaving—just like that.

He rose to see them out with limp handshakes all around. After they left, he leaned his bulk against the great rosewood door of his office. Rage burned in his gut. No warning, no letter, no telephone call, not even an appointment. They’d simply walked in, fired him, walked out—a real screw-you. And they’d implied he’d cheated them! After four years and fifteen million dollars’ worth of lobbying, he had gotten them the goose that laid the golden egg, and what had they done? Scalped him and left him for the buzzards. This wasn’t how things were done on K Street. No, sir. You took care of your friends.

He straightened up. Booker Hamlin Crawley never went down with the first punch. He was going to fight back—and an idea of how was starting to form in his mind already. He entered his inner office, locked the door, and removed a telephone from the bottom drawer of his desk. It was a landline phone registered in the name of a batty old lady in the nursing home around the corner, paid for by a credit card she didn’t even know she owned. He rarely used it.

He pressed the first digit, then stopped, tugged by the hint of a memory, the briefest flash of how and why he had come to Washington as a young man, bursting with ideas and hope. A sick feeling settled in his belly. But immediately the anger resurfaced. He would not give in to the one mortal sin in Washington: weakness.

He punched in the rest of the number. “May I please speak with the Reverend Don T. Spates?”

The phone call was short and sweet and the timing had been perfect. He hit the OFF button, feeling a surge of triumph at his brilliance. Within a month, he’d have those bareback-riding savages back in his office, begging to hire him—at twice the retainer.

His moist rubbery lips twitched with pleasure and anticipation.

4

WYMAN FORD LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW of the Cessna Citation as it banked over the Lukachukai Mountains and aimed for Red Mesa. It was a striking landform, an island in the sky walled all around by cliffs, seamed in layers of yellow, red, and chocolate sandstone. As he watched, sunlight spilled through an opening in the clouds and hit the mesa, lighting it on fire. It was like a lost world.

As they neared, details began to resolve themselves. Ford could make out landing strips that crossed like two black Band-Aids, with a set of hangars and a helipad. Three massive sets of high-tension power lines, strung on thirty-story trusses, came from the north and west and converged at the edge of the mesa, where there was a secure area, protected by a double fence. A mile away, a cluster of houses were nestled in a valley of cottonwoods, alongside green fields and a log building—the old Nakai Rock Trading Post. A brand-new asphalt road cut across the mesa, from west to east.

Ford’s eye traveled down the cliffs. About three hundred feet down, a massive square opening had been quarried into the side of the mesa, with a recessed metal door. As the plane continued to bank, he could see the only road up the mesa, twisting up the face of the cliff like a snake clinging to a tree trunk. The Dugway.

The Cessna nosed into a cone of descent. The surface of Red Mesa revealed itself to be riven and split by dry washes, valleys, and boulder fields.

A thin scattering of juniper trees alternated with the gray skeletons of piñons, patches of grassland and sagebrush, and areas of slickrock pocked by dune-fields.

The Cessna touched down on the runway and taxied up to a Quonset hut terminal. Several hangars stood behind, gleaming in the light. The pilot threw open the door. Ford, carrying only Lockwood’s briefcase, stepped onto the warm tarmac. There was no one there to greet him.

With a parting wave, the pilot remounted, and in a moment the small plane was back in the air, a glint of aluminum shrinking in the turquoise sky.

Ford watched the plane disappear, and then he ambled over to the terminal.

A wooden signboard hung on the door, hand-painted in Wild West–style letters.

He gave it a push with his finger, listening to it creak back and forth. Beside it, on metal posts sunk into concrete, a bright blue government sign spelled out, in dry bureaucratic language, pretty much the same thing. Wind gusted across the runway, coiling dust along the asphalt.

He tried the terminal door. Locked.

Ford stepped back and looked around, feeling like he’s dropped into the opening sequence of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The rasping of the sign and the moaning of the wind brought on a flash of memory—that moment, every day, when he would arrive home after school, lift the key from around his neck, unlock the door to the family home in Washington, and stand alone inside that vast echoing mansion. His mother was always off at some reception or fund-raiser, his father away on government business.

The roar of an approaching vehicle pulled him back to the present. A Jeep Wrangler topped a rise, disappeared behind the terminal, and reappeared tearing across the tarmac. With a squeal the car leaned into a turn, then stopped hard in front of him. A man jumped out, wide smile on his face, hand extended in greeting. Gregory North Hazelius. He looked just like the dossier photograph, wired with energy.

“Yá‘át’ééh shi éí, Gregory!” said Hazelius, clasping Ford’s hand.

“Yá‘át’ééh,” Ford answered. “Don’t tell me you speak Navajo.”

“Just a few words I learned from a former student of mine. Welcome.”

Ford’s brief review of Hazelius’s file indicated the man allegedly spoke twelve languages, including Farsi, two dialects of Chinese, and Swahili. No mention had been made of Navajo.

At six feet four, Ford routinely had to look down to meet other men’s eyes. This time he had to peer down more than usual. Hazelius was five feet five, a casually elegant figure in neatly pressed khakis, a cream-colored silk shirt—and a pair of Indian moccasins. His eyes were so blue, they looked like chips of backlit stained glass. An aquiline nose joined a high, smooth forehead, topped by wavy brown hair, neatly combed. A small package carrying an outsized energy.

“I wasn’t expecting the great man himself.”

Hazelius laughed. “We all do double duty. I’m the resident chauffeur. Please, get in.”

Ford folded his frame into the passenger seat, while Hazelius slipped into the driver’s seat with birdlike grace. “While we got Isabella up and running, I didn’t want a lot of support staff hanging around. Besides”—Hazelius turned on him with a brilliant smile—“I wanted to meet you personally. You’re our Jonah.”

“Jonah?”

“We were twelve. Now we’re thirteen. Because of you, we might have to send someone out to walk the plank.” He chuckled.

“You’re a superstitious lot.”

He laughed. “If only you knew! I never go anywhere without my rabbit’s foot.” He pulled an ancient, vile, and almost hairless amputated appendage out of his pocket. “My father gave it to me when I was six.”

“Lovely.”

Hazelius jammed his foot on the accelerator and the Jeep shot forward, pressing Ford back into the seat. The Wrangler flew across the tarmac and squealed onto a freshly laid asphalt road that wound among junipers. “It’s like summer camp, Wyman. We do all our own work—cooking, cleaning, driving. You name it. We’ve got a string theorist who grills a mean tenderloin, a psychologist who helped us lay in an excellent wine cellar, and various other multitalented folk.”

Ford gripped the handle as the Jeep slewed around a corner with a whine of rubber.

“Nervous?”

“Wake me up when we arrive.”

Hazelius laughed. “Can’t resist these empty roads—no cops and sightlines that go for miles. What about you, Wyman? What are your special talents?”

“I’m a killer dishwasher.”

“Excellent!”

“I can split wood.”

“Marvelous!”

Hazelius drove like mad, picking a line and taking it at maximum speed while totally disregarding the center stripe. “Sorry I wasn’t there to meet your plane. We’re just finishing up a run on Isabella. Can I give you a quick tour?”

“Great.”

The Jeep topped a rise at high speed. Fleetingly, Ford’s body felt weightless.

“Nakai Rock,” Hazelius said, pointing to the stone spire Ford had seen from the plane. “The old trading post took its name from that rock. We call our village Nakai Rock, too. Nakai—what does it mean? I’ve always wanted to know.”

“It’s the Navajo word for ‘Mexican.’ ”

“Thank you. I’m awfully glad you could come at such short notice. We’ve managed to get on the wrong side of the locals, unfortunately. Lockwood speaks highly of you.”

The road looped down into a sheltered valley, thick with cottonwoods and surrounded by red sandstone bluffs. Along the outside of the loop stood a dozen or more fake-adobe houses placed artfully among the cottonwoods, with postage-stamp lawns and picket fences. An emerald playing field in the center of the loop formed a vibrant contrast against the bluffs. At the far end of the valley, like a presiding judge, stood the tall hobgoblin rock.

“Eventually we’ll build quarters for up to two hundred families. This’ll be quite a little town of visiting scientists, their families, and support staff.”

The Jeep swept past the houses, making a broad turn. “Tennis court.” Hazelius gestured to the left. “Barn with three horses.”

They reached a picturesque structure made of logs chinked with adobe and shaded by massive cottonwoods. “The old trading post, converted to dining hall, kitchen, and rec room. Pool table, ping-pong, foosball, movies, library, canteen.”

“What’s a trading post doing way up here?”

“Before the coal company moved them off, the Navajo ran sheep on Red Mesa. The post traded food and supplies for the rugs they wove from the wool. Nakai Rock rugs are less well known than Two Grey Hills, but just as fine—finer, even.” He turned to Ford. “Where did you do your field research?”

“Ramah, New Mexico.” Ford didn’t add, It was just for the summer and I was only an undergrad.

“Ramah. Wasn’t that where the anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn did research for his famous book, Navaho Witchcraft ?”

Hazelius’s depth of knowledge surprised Ford. “That’s right.”

“Do you speak fluent Navajo?” Hazelius asked.

“Just enough to get myself into trouble. Navajo is possibly the most difficult language on earth.”

“As such it always interested me—helped us win World War Two.”

The Jeep shrieked to a stop in front of a casita, small and neat, with a fenced yard enclosing a patch of artificially green lawn, along with a patio, picnic table, and barbecue.

“The Ford residence,” Hazelius said.

“Charming.” In fact, it was anything but. It looked crushingly suburban, this tacky little subdivision done up in imitation Pueblo-revival style. But the setting was magnificent.

“Government housing is the same everywhere,” Hazelius said. “But you’ll find it comfortable.”

“Where is everybody?”

“Down in the Bunker. That’s what we call the underground complex that houses Isabella. By the way, where are your bags?”

“They’re coming tomorrow.”

“They must have been anxious to get you out here.”

“Didn’t even give me time to collect my toothbrush.”

Hazelius gunned the Jeep and took the final curve of the loop at rubber-stripping speed. Then he stopped, shifted into four-wheel drive, and coaxed the vehicle off the pavement onto two uneven ruts through the brush.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

They spun their wheels in gullies and bounced around boulders as the Jeep climbed up through the strange, twisted forest of junipers and dead piñons. They bounced along for a few miles. A long steep slope of red slick-rock sandstone loomed ahead.

The Jeep stopped, and Hazelius hopped out. “It’s just up here.”

His curiosity growing, Ford followed him up the slope to the summit of the peculiar sandstone bluff. The top was a huge surprise: he found himself unexpectedly at the edge of Red Mesa, the cliffs dropping away almost two thousand feet. There was no sense that the mesa edge had been coming up, no warning that a cliff lay ahead.

“Nice, eh?” Hazelius asked.

“Scary. You could drive over the edge before you knew it.”

“In fact, there’s a legend about a Navajo cowboy, chasing a maverick on horseback, who rode off here. They say his chindii, his ghost, still rides off the edge on certain dark, stormy nights.”

The view was breathtaking. An ancient land spread out below them, humps and pillars of rock the color of blood, windblasted and sculpted into strange shapes. Beyond lay mesas layered on mountains beyond mountains. It could have been the edge of Creation itself, where God had finally given up, in despair of bringing order to an unruly land.

“That great island mesa in the distance,” said Hazelius, “is No Man’s Mesa, nine miles long and a mile broad. They say there’s a secret trail to the top that no white man has ever found. To the left is Piute Mesa. Shonto Mesa is the one in front. Farther back are the Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Cedar Mesa, the Bears Ears, and the Manti-La Sal mountains.”

A pair of ravens rode an air current up, then dipped and glided back into gloomy depths. Their cries echoed among the canyons.

“Red Mesa is accessible at only two points—the Dugway, back behind us, and a trail that starts a couple of miles over there. Navajos call it the Midnight Trail. It ends in Blackhorse, that little settlement down there.”

As they turned to go, Ford noticed a series of marks on the face of a huge boulder that had split down the bedding plane.

Hazelius following his gaze. “See something?”

Ford walked over and laid his hand on the uneven surface. “Fossil raindrops. And . . . the fossilized track of an insect.”

“Well, well,” the scientist said in a low voice. “Everyone’s been up here to look at the view. But you’re the first person to have noticed that—beyond myself, of course. Fossil raindrops from a shower that fell in the age of dinosaurs. And then, after the rain, a beetle walked across the wet sand. Somehow, against all odds, this little moment in history got fossilized.” Hazelius touched it reverently. “Nothing we humans have done on this earth, none of our great works—not the Mona Lisa or Chartres Cathedral or even the pyramids of Egypt—will last as long as that beetle’s track in wet sand.”

Ford was strangely moved by the thought.

Hazelius traced his own finger along the insect’s wandering path, and then straightened up. “Well!” he said, grasping Ford’s shoulder and giving it an affectionate shake. “I can see you and I are going to be friends.”

Ford remembered Lockwood’s warning.

Hazelius turned southward, gesturing back across the mesa top. “In the Paleozoic, all this was an immense swamp. It gave us some of the thickest coal seams in America. They were mined out in the fifties. Those old tunnels were perfect for retrofitting Isabella.”

The sun lit Hazelius’s nearly unlined face as he turned to smile at Ford. “We couldn’t have found a better place, Wyman—isolated, undisturbed, uninhabited. But to me the most important thing was the beauty of this landscape, because beauty and mystery have a central place in physics. As Einstein said, ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true science.’ ”

Ford watched the sun slowly die in the deep canyons to the west, like gold melting into copper.

Hazelius said, “Ready to go underground?”

5

THE JEEP JOSTLED BACK TO THE road. Ford gripped the roof handhold, trying to look relaxed as Hazelius accelerated hard past the airstrip, hitting eighty on the straight road.

“See any cops?” Hazelius asked with a grin.

A mile beyond, the road was blocked by two gates in a double set of chain-link fences topped with concertina wire, walling off an area along the edge of the mesa. He braked at the last minute, the wheels squealing.

“All that’s inside is the Security Zone,” said Hazelius. He punched a code into a keypad on a post. A horn squawked and the gate rolled open. Hazelius drove in and parked the Jeep next to a row of other cars. “The Elevator,” he said, nodding toward a tall tower perched on the edge of the cliffs, festooned with antennae and satellite dishes. They walked up to it, and Hazelius swiped a card through a slot beside the metal door, then placed his hand on a palm reader. After a moment a husky female voice said, “Afternoon, sugar. Who’s the cat with you?”

“This is Wyman Ford.”

“Gimme some skin, Wyman.”

Hazelius smiled. “What she means is, lay your palm on the reader.”

Ford placed his hand on the warm glass. A bar of light moved down it.

“Hold on while I check with the man.”

Hazelius chuckled. “You like our little security interface?”

“Different.”

“That’s Isabella. Most computer voices are of the HAL variety, too white-bread for my taste.” He mimicked a stage-trained white voice: “‘Please listen carefully, as our menu items have changed.’ Isabella, on the other hand, has a real voice. Our engineer, Ken Dolby, programmed it. I believe he got some rap singer to lend him her voice.”

“Who is the real Isabella?”

“I don’t know. Ken’s rather mysterious on that point.”

The voice rolled out like honey. “The man says cool. You in the system now, so don’t get yo ass in no trouble.”

The metal doors swished open, revealing an elevator cage that ran down the side of the mountain. A small porthole window showed the view as they descended. When the elevator halted, Isabella warned them to watch their step.

They stood on a spacious outdoor platform cut into the side of the cliff in front of the huge titanium door Ford had seen from the air. It appeared to be twenty feet wide and at least forty feet high.

“This is the staging area. Another nice view, eh?”

“You should build condos.”

“This was the opening to the great Wepo coal seam. They took fifty million short tons of coal from this seam alone, and left huge caverns behind. A perfect setup for us. It was critical to get Isabella deep underground, to protect people from radiation when Isabella is running at high power.”

Hazelius approached the titanium portal set back into the cliff. “We call this fortress the Bunker.”

“I need yo number, sugar,” Isabella said.

Hazelius punched in a series of numbers on a small keypad.

A moment later the voice said, “Come on in, boys.” The door began to rise.

“Why such high security?” Ford asked.

“We have a forty-billion-dollar investment to protect. And much of our hardware and software is classified.”

The door opened on a vast echoing cavern carved out of stone. It smelled of dust and smoke, with a hint of mustiness that reminded Ford of his grandmother’s cellar. It was cool and pleasant after the heat of the desert. The door rumbled down, and Ford blinked to adjust to the sodium lighting. The cavern was huge, perhaps six hundred feet deep and fifty feet high. Straight ahead, at the far end of the cavern, Ford could see an oval door, which opened into the side of a tunnel filled with stainless steel pipes, tubes, and bundles of cable. A fog of condensates poured out of the door, flowing over the ground in little rivers that vanished. To the left a cinder block wall had been built across another opening in the rock, with a steel door in it. The door was marked THE BRIDGE. Along the other side of the cavern there were stacks of steel caissons, I-beams, and other leftover construction materials, along with heavy equipment and half a dozen golf carts.

Hazelius took his arm. “Straight ahead is the oval opening to Isabella itself. That fog is condensation from the superconducting magnets. They have to be cooled with liquid helium at close to absolute zero to maintain superconductivity. That tunnel runs back into the mesa, forming a torus fifteen miles in diameter, where we circulate the two particle beams. The fleet of electric golf carts over there is transportation. Now let’s go meet the gang.”

As they strolled across the cavern, their footfalls echoing in the cathedral-like space, Ford asked casually, “How are things going?”

“Problems,” said Hazelius. “One damn thing after another.”

“Like what?”

“Software, this time.”

They approached the door marked the bridge. Hazelius opened it for Ford, exposing a cinder block corridor painted slime green and illuminated with fluorescent strips in the ceiling.

“Second door on the right. Here, let me get it for you.”

Ford stepped through into a circular room, brightly lit. Huge flat-panel computer screens lined the walls, giving the room the appearance of the bridge of a spaceship, with windows looking into deep space. The screens were not operating, and a starship screen saver running simultaneously on them completed the illusion of a spaceship passing through a starfield. Below the screens were massive banks of control panels, consoles, and workstations. The room had a sunken center, with a retro-futuristic swivel chair in the middle.

Most of the scientists had paused in their work to look at Ford curiously. He was struck by their haggard appearance, their pale, cave-creature faces and rumpled clothes. They looked worse than a bunch of grad students at the bitter end of final exams. His eyes instinctually searched for Kate Mercer, and then he immediately upbraided himself for his interest.

“Look familiar?” Hazelius asked, an amused twinkle in his eye.

Ford looked around, surprised. It did look familiar—and he suddenly realized why.

“To go where no man has gone before,” he said.

Hazelius laughed delightedly. “Right you are! It’s a replica of the bridge of the original starship Enterprise from Star Trek. It happened to make an excellent design for a particle accelerator control room.”

The illusion that this was the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise was partly spoiled by a trash barrel overflowing with soda cans and frozen pizza boxes. Papers and candy wrappers lay scattered about the floor, and an unopened bottle of Veuve Clicquot lay on its side against the curving wall.

“Sorry about the mess—we’re wrapping up a run. Only about half the team is here—you can meet the rest at dinner.” He turned to the group. “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the newest member of our team, Wyman Ford. He’s the anthropologist I requested to act as a liaison with the local communities.”

Nods, murmurs of greeting, a fleeting smile or two—he was little more than a distraction. Which was just fine with him.

“I’ll just go around the room and introduce everyone quickly. We can get better acquainted at dinner.”

The group waited wearily.

“This is Tony Wardlaw, our senior intelligence officer. He’s here to keep us out of trouble.”

A man as solid as a butcher’s block stepped forward. “Nice to meet you, sir.” He had a whitewall marine haircut, military posture, no-nonsense expression—and the gray face of exhaustion. As Ford expected, the man’s grip tried to crush his hand. He crushed back.

“This is George Innes, our team psychologist. He leads weekly chat sessions and helps keep us sane. I don’t know where we’d be without his steadying presence.”

A few exchanged glances and rolled eyes told Ford where the others felt they’d be without Innes. Innes’s handshake was cool and professional, just the right pressure and length. He looked outdoorsy, in neatly pressed L.L. Bean khaki pants and a checked shirt. Fit, well groomed, he looked like the type who thought everyone but himself had problems.

“Good to meet you, Wyman,” he said, peering over the rim of his tortoiseshell glasses. “I imagine you must feel a bit like a new student entering school in the middle of the semester.”

“I do.”

“I’m here if you ever feel the need to talk.”

“Thank you.”

Hazelius swept him forward toward a wreck of a young man, early thirties, thin as a rail, with long greasy blond hair. “This is Peter Volkonsky, our software engineer. Peter hails from Yekaterinburg, Russia.”

Reluctantly Volkonsky detached himself from the console he had been hunched over. His restless, manic eyes roved over Ford. He didn’t offer his hand, merely nodded distractedly, with a curt “Hi.”

“Good to meet you, Peter.”

Volkonsky shifted back to his keyboard and resumed typing. His thin shoulder blades stuck out like a child’s under his ragged T-shirt.

“And this is Ken Dolby, our chief engineer and the designer of Isabella. Someday there’ll be a statue of him in the Smithsonian.”

Dolby strode over—big, tall, friendly, African-American, maybe thirty-nine, with the laid-back air of a California surfer. Ford liked him immediately—a no-nonsense kind of guy. He, too, looked frayed, with bloodshot eyes. He extended his palm. “Welcome,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind we’re not at our best. Some of us have been up for thirty-six hours.”

They moved on. “And this is Alan Edelstein,” Hazelius continued, “our mathematician.”

A man Ford had barely noticed, sitting away from the others, raised his eyes from the book he was reading—Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. He raised a single finger in greeting, his penetrating eyes steady on Ford. His arch look suggested supercilious amusement with the world.

“How’s the book?” Ford asked.

“A real page-turner.”

“Alan is a man of few words,” said Hazelius. “But he speaks the language of mathematics with great eloquence. Not to mention his powers as a snake charmer.”

Edelstein acknowledged the compliment with an incline of his head.

“Snake charmer?”

“Alan has a rather controversial hobby.”

“He keeps rattlesnakes as pets,” said Innes. “He has a way with them, it seems.” He said it facetiously, but Ford thought he detected an edge in his voice.

Without looking up from his book, Edelstein said, “Snakes are interesting and useful. They eat rats. Which we have quite a few of around here.” He shot a pointed glance at Innes.

“Alan does us a double service,” said Hazelius. “Those Havahart traps you’ll see in the Bunker and scattered about the facility keep us rodent—and hantavirus—free. He feeds them to his snakes.”

“How do you catch a rattlesnake?” Ford asked.

“Carefully,” Innes answered for Edelstein, with a tense laugh, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

Once more Edelstein’s dark eyes met Ford’s. “If you see one, let me know and I’ll show you.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Excellent,” said Hazelius hastily. “Now let me introduce you to Rae Chen, our computer engineer.”

An Asian woman who looked young enough to be carded jumped off her seat and stuck out her hand, her waist-length black hair swinging. She was dressed like a typical Berkeley student, in a grubby T-shirt with a peace sign on the front and jeans patched with pieces of a British flag.

“Hey, nice to meet you, Wyman.” An unusual intelligence lurked in her black eyes, and something that resembled wariness. Or maybe it was just that she, like the others, looked exhausted.

“My pleasure.”

“Well, back to work,” she said with artificial brightness, nodding at her computer.

“That mostly does it,” said Hazelius. “But where’s Kate? I thought she was running those Hawking radiation calculations.”

“She took off early,” said Innes. “Said she wanted to get dinner started.”

Hazelius circled back to his chair, gave it an affectionate slap. “When Isabella is running, we’re peering into the very moment of creation.” He chuckled. “I get a kick out of sitting in my Captain Kirk chair, watching us go where no man has gone before.”

Ford watched him settle in his chair, kicking his feet up with a smile, and he thought—he’s the only one in this room who doesn’t look worried sick.

6

SUNDAY EVENING, THE REVEREND DON T. SPATES fitted his bulk into the makeup chair so as not to crease his pants and handmade Italian cotton shirt. Once in, he adjusted his large bottom, moving it from side to side with a flurry of creaks and squeaks in the leather. He carefully leaned his head back against the headrest. Wanda stood to one side, holding the barbershop robe.

“Do me good, Wanda,” he said, closing his eyes. “This is a big Sunday. A real big Sunday.”

“You’re going to look just great, Reverend,” said Wanda, snapping the robe over him and tucking it in around his neck. Then, with a soothing clinking of bottles, combs, and brushes, she set to work, paying special attention to the reverend’s liver spots and the spiderlike clusters of varicose veins on his cheeks and nose. She was good at what she did and she knew it. Regardless of what the others might say, she thought the reverend a fine, handsome man.

Her long white hands worked with expert economy, swift and precise, but the reverend’s ears were always a challenge. They stood out from the head a trifle too much, and were lighter and redder than his adjacent skin. Sometimes, as he strode about the stage, the backlight would catch his ears, turning them into pink stained glass. To bring them to their proper tonal value, she covered them with a heavy base makeup three shades darker than his face, and finished with a face powder that made them virtually opaque.

As she smoothed, stroked, brushed, and dabbed, she checked her work in a color-balanced video monitor that displayed a feed from a camera trained on the reverend. It was essential to see her handiwork as it would appear onscreen—something that looked perfect to the eye could show up as a ghastly two-tone on the monitor. She worked on him this way twice a week: for his televised sermon on Sunday, and for his Friday talk show on the Christian Cable Service.

Yes, the reverend was a fine man.

REVEREND DON T. SPATES FELT COMFORTED AND cosseted by her professional bustle. It had been a bad year. His enemies were out to get him, twisting his every word, attacking him mercilessly. Every sermon seemed to generate vilification from the atheist left. It was a sad time when a man of God was attacked for speaking the simple truth. Of course, there’d been that unfortunate incident in the motel with the two prostitutes. The ungodly liars had had a field day with that. But the flesh is weak—as the Bible repeatedly confirms. In Jesus’ eyes, we are all hopeless, backsliding sinners. Spates had asked for and received God’s forgiveness. But the hypocritical, evil world forgave slowly, if at all.

“Time for your teeth, Reverend.”

Spates opened his mouth and felt her expert hands applying the ivory dentine fluid. In the bright lights of the camera, it would make his teeth flash as pearly white as the gates of heaven.

After that she worked on his hair, carefully grooming the wiry, orangish helmet until it was just right. She gave it an indirect spritz of hair spray and puffed on a bit of powder to tone the color down to a more respectable ginger.

“Your hands, Reverend?”

Spates extracted his freckled hands from under the cover and laid them on a manicure tray. She bustled over them, applying a makeup base designed to minimize wrinkles and color variations. His hands had to match his face. In fact, Spates was particularly insistent that his hands be perfect. They were an extension of his voice. Botched makeup there could ruin the impact of his message, as camera close-ups of laying on of hands revealed flaws unnoticed by the eye.

The hands took her fifteen minutes. She gouged dirt from under the nails, applied clear fingernail polish, repaired nicks, sanded the nails, cleaned and cut off excess skin, and, finally, covered them with an appropriate shade of makeup base.

A final check in the TV monitor, a few touch-ups, and Wanda stepped back.

“All ready, Reverend.” She turned the monitor toward him.

Spates examined himself in the monitor—face, eyes, ears, lips, teeth, hands.

“That spot on my neck, Wanda? You missed that spot—again.”

A quick swipe of the sponge, a touch-up with the brush, and it vanished. Spates grunted his satisfaction.

Wanda flicked off the coverings and stood back. From out of the wings, Spates’s aide, Charles, rushed in with the reverend’s suit jacket. Spates rose from the chair and held out his arms, while Charles slipped on the jacket, tugged and smoothed down the cloth, gave it a quick brushing, plumped up the shoulders, smoothed and tucked the collar, and adjusted the tie.

“How are the shoes, Charles?”

Charles gave the shoes a few swipes with a shine cloth.

“Time?”

“Six minutes to eight, Reverend.”

Years ago, Spates had had the idea to schedule his Sunday sermon for prime time in the evening, to avoid the televangelist morning crush. He called it God’s Prime Time. Everyone predicted he’d fail, going up against some of the strongest programming of the week. Instead, it had proved a stroke of genius.

Spates strode from the room toward the wings of the stage, Charles following. As he came close, he could hear the rustle and murmur of the faithful—thousands of them—taking their seats in the Silver Cathedral from where he broadcast God’s Prime Time for two hours every Sunday.

“Three minutes,” murmured Charles in his ear.

Spates inhaled the air in the shadows of the wings. The crowd quieted as the audience prompts scrolled across the screens and the appointed time neared.

He felt the glory of God energize his body with the Holy Spirit. He loved this moment just before the sermon; it was like nothing else in this world, a surge of rising fire, triumph, and anticipatory exultation.

“How’s the audience?” he whispered to Charles.

“About sixty percent.”

A cold knife stabbed into the heart of his joy. Sixty percent—last week it

A cold knife stabbed into the heart of his joy. Sixty percent—last week it had been seventy. Just six months ago people had been lining up for tickets, Sunday after Sunday, and had to be turned away. But since the motel incident, on-air donations were down by half and the ratings for the broadcast had fallen forty percent. The bastards at the Christian Cable Service were about to cancel his Roundtable America talk show. God’s Prime Time Ministry was heading into the darkest night since he had founded it in a vacant JCPenney thirty years before. If he didn’t get an infusion of cash soon, he’d be forced to default on the “Own a Piece of Jesus” bonds he had sold over the air to hundreds of thousands of parishioners to finance the building of the Silver Cathedral.

His thoughts turned back to the meeting with the lobbyist Booker Crawley earlier that day. What a sign of God’s grace that Crawley’s proposal had come his way. If handled right, this might be just the issue he’d been looking for to rejuvenate the ministry and galvanize financial support. The evolution versus creationism debate was old hat, and it was getting hard to gain traction on that one—especially with so much competition from other televangelists. Crawley’s issue, on the other hand, was fresh, it was new, and it was ripe for the plucking.

Damned if he wasn’t going to pluck that fruit—now.

“It’s time, Reverend,” came Charles’s low voice from behind.

The lights went up and a roar came from the crowd as the Reverend Spates strode onstage, his head bowed, his hands raised and clasped together, shaking rhythmically.

“God’s Prime Time!” he rolled out in his richly timbred bass voice, full of vibrato. “ God’s Prime Time! The Prime Time of God’s Glory Is Nigh!” At stage center, he stopped sharply, raised his head, and stretched his arms outward to the audience, as if beseeching them. His fingertips trembled. His words rolled over the audience.

“Greetings to all of you in the precious Name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!”

Another roar rose from the giant Silver Cathedral. He lifted his hands high, palms up, and the roar went on—sustained with the help of the prompters. He lowered his arms, and silence fell once again, like the aftermath of thunder.

He bowed his head in prayer, then said, in a soft, humble voice, “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I.”

He raised his head slowly, keeping his profile to the audience, and spoke in his richest tone, raising one arm, inch by inch, drawing out each word to its fullest.

“In the beginning,” he throbbed, “God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”

He paused, inhaling dramatically. “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

His voice suddenly boomed through the Silver Cathedral like the notes of an organ. “And God said,Let there be light! ”

A dramatic beat, and he continued, in the barest whisper. “And there was light.”

He strode to the edge of the stage and beamed a folksy smile on the wor-shippers. “We all know those opening words of Genesis. Some of the most powerful words ever written. No ambiguity there. Those are the very words of God, my friends. God is telling us in His own words how He created the universe.”

He strolled casually along the edge of the stage. “My friends, will it surprise you if I tell you the government is spending your hard-earned taxpayer dollars in an effort to prove God wrong?”

He turned, eyeing the silent audience.

“You don’t believe me?”

A murmur rose from the sea of faces.

He pulled a piece of paper from his suit-coat pocket and snapped it in the air, his voice suddenly full of thunder. “It’s right here. I downloaded it off the Internet less than an hour ago.”

Another murmur.

“And what did I learn? That our government has spent forty billion dollars to prove Genesis wrong—forty billion dollars of your money to attack the holiest Scripture in the Old Testament. Yes, my friends, it’s all part of the government-sponsored, secular humanist war on Christianity, and it’s ugly.”

He paced the stage. He shook the paper in his fist, crackling it.

“Right here it says they’ve built a machine in the Arizona desert called Isabella. Many of you have heard of it.”

A big murmur of agreement.

“I had, too. I just thought it was another government boondoggle. Only recently was I made aware of its pur-pose.”

A sudden halt in his pacing, and a slow turn to face the audience.

“Its pur-pose, my friends, is to investigate the so-called Big Bang theory. That’s right, you heard it, there’s that word ‘theory’ again!”

His voice was laced with scorn.

“The Big Bang theory goes like this:thirteen billion years ago a teeny-weeny point in space blew up and created the entire universe—without the helping hand of God. You heard me: Creation without God. Ay-thee-istic Creation.”

He waited while a disbelieving silence grew. He shook the paper again. “That’s what it says, folks! A whole Web site, hundreds of pages devoted to explaining the Creation of the Universe, and not one mention of God!”

Another glare around the hall.

“This Big Bang theory is no different from the theory that says our great-granddaddies were monkeys. Or the theory that says life’s complexity was created by an accidental rearrangement of molecules in a puddle of mud. This Big Bang theory is just another secular humanistic, anti-Christian, antifaith theory no different from evolution, except that this one’s worse. Much, much worse! ”

Spin, turn, pace.

“Because this theory attacks the very notion that God created the universe. Make no mistake about it: Isabella is a direct attack on Christian faith. The Big Bang theory says this beautiful, this exquisite, this God-given universe of ours happened all by itself, by sheer accident, thirteen billion years ago. And as if that Christian-hating theory wasn’t enough, now they want to spend forty billion dollars of our money to prove it!”

He raked the audience with a fierce eye.

“How about if we asked the savants in Washington for equal time? What if we asked them for forty billion dollars to prove the Truth of Genesis? What about that! The professional Jesus-hating liberals in Washington would gnash their teeth and foam at the mouth! They’d trot out that old saw about separation of church and state! These are the folks who’ve banned Jesus from the classrooms, yanked the Ten Commandments from our courtrooms, outlawed Christmas trees and crèches, mocked and spat on our beliefs—and then these same secular humanists think nothing of spending our money to prove the Bible wrong, to make a lie out of our Christian faith!”

The hubbub swelled. A few people stood up, then more, then the entire congregation. They surged upward like a tsunami, their voices merging into a single roar of disapproval.

The prompters remained dark, unneeded now.

“This is a war on Christianity, my friends! It’s a war to the finish, and they’re taxing you and me to wage it! Are we going to let them spit on Christ and charge us for the privilege?”

The Reverend DonT. Spates stopped dead at stage center, breathing heavily, gazing out over the seething audience in the Virginia Beach cathedral, flabbergasted at the effect of his words. He could hear it, he could see it, he could feel it—the frenzied swell, the upwelling of righteous anger, the very air crackling with the electricity of outrage. He could hardly believe it. He’d been throwing rocks all his life, and suddenly he’d lobbed a grenade. This was the issue he’d been praying for, hoping for, searching for.

“God and Jesus be praised!” he cried out, throwing his arms toward heaven and raising his eyes to the glittering ceiling. He sank to his knees in loud, quavering prayer. “Lord Jesus, with Your help, we will stop this insult to Your Father. We will destroy that infernal machine out there in the howling desert. We will put an end to this blasphemy against You called Isabella!”

7

AT QUARTER TO EIGHT, WYMAN FORD stepped out of the two-bedroom casita and stood at the end of the driveway, inhaling the fragrant night air. The windows of the dining hall were rectangles of yellow floating in darkness. Above the swish of the sprinklers on the playing field, he could hear the faint sounds of a boogie-woogie piano tune and the murmur of voices. He couldn’t imagine Kate as any different from the irreverent, pot-smoking, argumentative graduate student he had known. But she must have changed—a lot—to become assistant director of the most important scientific experiment in the history of physics.

His mind seemed to slide naturally into memories of her and their time together, thoughts that had the unfortunate tendency to become X-rated. He hastily shoved them back into the id corner of his mind from which they had sprung. This was not, he thought, a responsible way to begin the investigation.

He skirted the sprinklers, reached the front door of the old log trading post, and entered. Light and music spilled from a recreation room to his right. He walked in. People were playing cards or chess, reading, working on laptop computers. Away from the Bridge, they appeared almost relaxed.

Hazelius himself sat at the piano. His tiny fingers jumped around the keys for several more bars and then he rose. “Wyman, welcome! Dinner is just ready.” He met Ford halfway across the room, took his arm, and led him toward the dining hall. The rest began to rise and follow.

A heavy pine table set with candles, silver, and fresh wildflowers dominated the dining room. A fire blazed in a stone fireplace. Navajo rugs hung on the walls; Nakai Rock style, Ford guessed from the geometric designs. Several bottles of wine stood open, and the smell of grilled steak wafted in from the kitchen.

Hazelius acted the genial host, seating people, laughing, joking. He ushered Ford to a seat in the middle, next to a willowy blonde.

“Melissa? This is Wyman Ford, our new anthropologist. Melissa Corcoran, our cosmologist.”

They shook hands. A mass of heavy blond hair tumbled down around her shoulders, and her pale green eyes, the color of sea glass, turned on him with curiosity. A smattering of freckles dusted an upturned nose; a beaded Indian vest, both stylish and simple, set off her pants and shirt. But Corcoran’s eyes, too, were faintly bloodshot and rimmed in red.

The seat on his other side was empty.

“Before you start on Wyman,” Hazelius said to Corcoran, “I’d like to finish introducing him to those who didn’t meet him earlier.”

“Go ahead.”

“This is Julie Thibodeaux, our quantum electrodynamicist.”

A woman opposite Ford gave him a curt hello before returning to a querulous monologue aimed at the white-haired, leprechaun-like man next to her. Thibodeaux resembled the stereotype of the female scientist: dowdy, overweight, dressed in a dingy lab coat, her short hair stringy from lack of washing. A set of pens in a plastic pocket protector completed the caricature. Her file said she suffered from something called “borderline personality disorder.” Ford was curious to see just how that manifested itself.

“The gentleman talking to Julie is Harlan St. Vincent, our electrical engineer. When Isabella is running at full power, Harlan manages the nine hundred megawatts of electricity pouring in here like Niagara Falls.”

St. Vincent stood and extended his hand across the table. “Pleased to meet you, Wyman.” When he sat back down, Thibodeaux went on with her disquisition, which seemed to involve something called a Bose-Einstein condensate.

“Michael Cecchini, our Standard Model particle physicist, is the gentleman at the far end.”

A short, dark man rose, extended his hand. Ford took it, struck by his curiously flat, opaque gray eyes. The man looked dead inside—and the handshake was the same: clammy and lifeless. And yet, as if in defiance of the nihilism at the center of his existence, Cecchini had taken fastidious care with his dress; his shirt was a white so brilliant it hurt the eyes, there was a knife-edge crease in his slacks, and his hair was parted with military precision and groomed to perfection. Even his hands were immaculate, as soft and clean as patted dough, the nails emery-boarded and polished to a high gloss. Ford caught a faint scent of an expensive aftershave. But nothing could completely cover up the whiff of existential despair clinging to him.

Hazelius finished the introductions and disappeared into the kitchen, and the noise level grew.

Ford still hadn’t met Kate. He wondered if that was a coincidence.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever met an anthropologist before,” Melissa Corcoran spoke to him.

He turned. “And I’ve never met a cosmologist.”

“You’d be amazed at how many people think I do hair and nails.” Her smile seemed an invitation. “What exactly will you be doing here?”

“Getting to know the locals. Explaining to them what’s going on.”

“Ah, but do you understand what’s going on?” Her voice had taken on a teasing tone.

“Maybe you’ll help me out.”

Smiling, she reached across the table and grasped a bottle. “Wine?”

“Thank you.”

She examined the label. “Villa di Capezzana, Carmignano, 2000. I have no idea what it is, but it’s good. George Innes is our wine connoisseur. George? Tell us about the wine.”

Innes broke off a conversation at the other end of the table, a smile of pleasure lighting his face. He tucked his glasses up. “I was lucky to snag that case—I wanted to serve something special tonight. Capezzana is one of my favorites, from an old estate in the hills west of Florence. It was the first DOC to permit cabernet sauvignon in the blend. It exhibits good color, red and black currant aromas mingling with cherries, and good depth of fruit.”

Corcoran turned back to Ford with a smirk. “George is a frightful wine snob,” she said, pouring a generous portion into his glass, then refilling her own. She raised it. “Welcome to Red Mesa. A horrible place.”

“Why is that?”

“I brought my cat—I couldn’t bear to be parted from her. Two days after we arrived, I heard a howl and saw a coyote running off with her.”

“How terrible.”

“You see them all over, the mangy, slinking brutes. Then there are the tarantulas, scorpions, bears, bobcats, porcupines, skunks, rattlesnakes, and black widow spiders.” Reciting the words seemed to please her. “I hate this place,” she said with relish.

Ford smiled with what he hoped looked like embarrassment and asked the dumbest question he could think of. No point in people thinking he was smart. “So, what’s Isabella supposed to do? I’m just an anthropologist.”

“In theory, it’s quite simple. Isabella smashes subatomic particles together at almost the speed of light, to re-create the energy conditions of the Big Bang. It’s like a demolition derby. Two separate beams of particles accelerate in opposite directions in a huge circular pipe, forty-seven miles in circumference. The particles go faster and faster, round and round inside the ring, until they’re moving at 99.99 percent the speed of light in opposite directions. The fun begins when we bring them together in a head-on collision. In that way we re-create the violence of the Big Bang itself.”

“What kinds of particles do you smash together?”

“Matter and antimatter—protons and antiprotons. When they come together—pow! E equals mc squared. The sudden blast of energy creates a spray of all kinds of different particles. That spray gets caught in the detectors and we can figure out what each particle is and how it was created.”

“Where do you get antimatter?”

“We mail-order it from Washington.”

Ford smiled. “And I thought they only had black holes.”

“Seriously, we create our own antimatter on-site by blasting a gold plate with alpha particles. We collect the antiprotons in a secondary ring, then feed them into the main ring as needed.”

“So where does the cosmology part come in?” Ford asked.

“I’m here to study dark things!” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Dark matter and dark energy.” Another sip of wine.

“Sounds scary.”

She laughed. He watched her green eyes traveling across him, appraisingly, frankly, and wondered how old she might be. Thirty-three? Four?

“About thirty years ago, astronomers began to realize that most of the matter in the universe wasn’t the usual stuff you could see and touch. They called it dark matter. It seems that dark matter is all around us, invisible, passing through us undetected, like a shadow universe. Galaxies sit in the middle of huge pools of dark matter. We don’t know what it is, why it exists, or where it came from. Since dark matter must have been created along with regular matter during the Big Bang, I hope to use Isabella to make some of it.”

“And dark energy?”

“Lovely, creepy stuff. Back in 1999, cosmologists found that some unknown energy field was causing the universe to expand, faster and faster, blowing it up like a giant balloon. They christened it dark energy. Nobody has the slightest idea what it is or where it comes from. It appears to be malevolent.”

Across the table Volkonsky snorted, his voice shrill. “Malevolent? Universe is indifferent. It not give a shit about us.”

“The fact is,” said Corcoran, “dark energy will eventually wreck the universe—in the Big Rip.”

“The Big Rip?” Until now, Ford had been feigning ignorance, but the Big Rip was new to him.

“It’s the latest theory of the fate of the universe. Pretty soon the expansion of the universe will become so fast that galaxies will be ripped apart, then the stars, the planets, you and me—down to the very atoms themselves. Everything gone, poof! Existence will come to an end. I wrote the article about it on Wikipedia. Check it out.”

She took another sip, and Ford noticed she wasn’t the only one enjoying the wine. The conversations around them had swelled in volume, and half a dozen bottles already stood empty.

“Did you say ‘pretty soon’?”

“No more than twenty, twenty-five billion years from now.”

“Soon depends on perspective,” said Volkonsky with a harsh laugh.

Corcoran said, “We cosmologists take the long view.”

“And we computer scientists take short view. Like millisecond short.”

“Milliseconds?” said Thibodeaux scornfully. “My work in quantum electrodynamics deals in femtoseconds.”

Hazelius came out of the kitchen carrying a platter heaped with medallions of grilled tenderloin. He set it down to a chorus of approval from the table.

Kate Mercer appeared behind him, carrying a bowl of steak frites. Without looking Ford’s way, she set it down and vanished back into the kitchen.

Nothing Ford imagined had prepared him for this first glimpse of her since they broke up. At thirty-five, she was even more beautiful than she had been at twenty-three—except that her long, unruly cascade of black hair was now short and stylish; the unkempt graduate student in jeans and oversized men’s shirts had grown up. Twelve years had passed since he last saw her—but it felt like only a few days.

He felt a nudge in his ribs and turned to see Corcoran holding out the platter. “I hope you’re not a vegetarian, Wyman.”

“Not at all.” He selected a slab oozing blood and passed the dish on, trying to appear relaxed. Kate’s appearance had unnerved him.

“Don’t think we eat like this every night,” she said. “Your arrival makes it special.”

A spoon tinkled against glass, and Hazelius rose, holding up his wine. Conversation stopped.

“I prepared a little toast of welcome—” He looked around. “Now where’s our assistant director?”

The door to the kitchen opened and Kate bustled out, quickly seating herself next to Ford with her eyes fixed ahead on the table.

“I was just saying, I wanted to offer a toast of welcome to the newest member of our team: Wyman Ford.”

Ford kept his eyes on Hazelius as he took in Kate’s slender presence beside him, the warmth of her body, her scent.

“As most of you know, Wyman is an anthropologist and his field of study is human nature—a far more complex subject than anything we’re working on.” He raised his glass. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you, Wyman. A very,very warm welcome from us all.”

A round of applause.

“And now, before I sit down, I wanted to say a few words about our disappointment last night . . . .” He paused. “We’re engaged in a struggle that has been going on since a human being first gazed up at the stars and wondered what they were. The search for truth is the greatest of all human endeavors. From the discovery of fire to the discovery of the quark, this is the very essence of what it means to be human. We—the thirteen of us here—are the true heirs of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind.”

He paused dramatically.

“You know what happened to Prometheus. In retribution, the gods chained him to a rock for eternity. Every day, an eagle flies down, tears opens his side, and devours his liver. But because he’s immortal, he cannot die, and must endure the torture forever.”

The room was so quiet, Ford could hear the crackle of the fire in the grate.

“The search for truth is a hard, hard thing, as we are finding out.” Hazelius raised his glass. “To the heirs of Prometheus.”

People drank solemnly to the toast.

“Our next run will begin Wednesday at noon. From now until then, I want each of you to concentrate every fiber of your being on the task at hand.”

He sat down. People picked up their knives and forks, and the conversation gradually resumed.

When the voices had grown loud enough, Ford said quietly, “Hello, Kate.”

“Hello, Wyman.” Her eyes were guarded. “This is a surprise, to say the least.”

“You look well.”

“Thank you.”

“Assistant director—that’s quite an achievement.” He had felt like a voyeur, reading her dossier. But he couldn’t stop himself—it had intrigued him. She had had a rocky life since they parted.

“And you—what happened to your CIA career?”

“I gave it up.”

“And now you’re an anthropologist?”

“Yes.”

Neither said more. The sound of her voice, the musical lilt of it with just the hint of a lisp, hit him even harder than her appearance. He quickly stepped down on the flood of memories. The reaction was absurd—they had broken up long ago. Since then he had half a dozen relationships and a marriage. It hadn’t been a pretty breakup either—no “let’s just be friends” about it. They had said unforgivable things to each other.

Kate had turned and was speaking to someone else. He took a sip from his wine, lost in thought. His mind went back to when he had first seen her at MIT. Early one afternoon he’d been searching for a quiet reading corner at the back of the Barker Engineering Library when he noticed a woman sleeping under a table—a not-unusual sight. Her right cheek rested on her hand; the other arm lay across her shirt. Her long glossy hair fanned across the carpet. She was slender and cool, with the fine, delicate features often seen in people with dual Asian-Caucasian ancestry. She looked like a sleeping gazelle. The pale hollow at the base of her curved neck, next to her clavicle, struck him as the most erotic thing he had ever seen. His eyes lingered on her, shamelessly drinking in every erotic detail of her sleeping body. He couldn’t seem to move on. He just stared.

A fly grazed her cheek. Her head jerked, and her mahogany eyes flew open, fixing on him. He felt busted.

She blushed and scrambled awkwardly out from under the table. “What’s your problem?”

He mumbled something about having wanted to make sure she was okay.

She softened, embarrassed. “I must’ve looked kind of weird, lying on the floor. Usually there’s no one around at this time of day. I can sleep for ten minutes and wake up refreshed.”

His only interest in her, he assured her again, had been concern for her health. She made a throwaway comment about needing a double shot of espresso before hitting the books. He said he could use one, too—and that was their first date.

They were so different. That was part of the appeal. She was small-town working class, he big-city elite. She liked Blondie; he liked Bach. She sometimes smoked pot, which he found faintly scandalous. He was Catholic; she was a strident atheist. He was in control; she was unpredictable, spontaneous, even wild. On their second date, it was she who made the moves on him. On top of that, she was academically brilliant—perhaps even a genius. She was so smart, it scared him and turned him on at the same time. Even outside of physics, she had a fanatical drive to understand human nature. She was fiercely partisan, outraged at the unfairness of the world, a petition-signer, marcher, and letter-to-the-editor writer. He remembered their arguments on politics and religion that went on to the wee hours, and how surprised he was at her insight into human psychology, despite the raw emotionalism of her views.

His decision to join the CIA had ended their relationship. For her, either you were one of the good guys or you weren’t. The CIA was definitely in the “weren’t” category. She called it the Catastrophe-Inducing Agency—and that was when she was being polite.

“So, Wyman,” Kate said, “why’d you give it up?”

“What?” Ford came back to the present.

“Your CIA career. What happened?”

Ford wished he could just make himself say it: Because my wife got car-bombed while we were working undercover.

“It didn’t work out,” he said lamely.

“I see. Is it . . . is it too much to hope you changed your views?”

Is it too much to hope you changed yours? Ford thought, but let it pass. It was so like her: to get right to the heart of the matter, damn the cost. He’d loved that part of her, and he’d hated it.

“The dinner looks great,” he said, trying to keep things bland. “Last I remember, you were empress of the microwave.”

“Fast food was making me fat.”

Again, silence.

Ford felt a nudge in his ribs from the other direction. Melissa Corcoran was holding out a bottle, offering to refill his glass. She looked flushed.

“Steak’s perfect,” she said. “Nice work, Kate.”

“Thanks.”

“Rare—just the way I like it. But hey,” she said, gesturing at Ford’s plate. “You haven’t touched yours!”

Ford took a bite, but he had lost his appetite.

“I bet Kate’s been telling you all about string theory. It’s pretty cool stuff—even if it’s sheer speculation.”

“Not at all like dark energy,” said Kate, an edge to her voice.

Ford immediately sensed a history between these two women.

“Dark energy,” said Corcoran coolly, “was discovered experimentally. By observation. The problem with string theory is just the opposite—it only exists as a bunch of equations with no testable predictions. It’s not really science.”

Volkonsky leaned over the table, and Ford caught a whiff of stale cigarette smoke. “Dark energy, strings, phffft! Who cares? I want to know what anthropologist does.”

Ford was relieved by the distraction. “We go and live with a remote tribe and ask a lot of stupid questions.”

“Ha-ha!” Volkonsky said. “Maybe you heard, the redskins are coming to Red Mesa. I hope it isn’t scalping party!” He gave an Indian whoop and looked around for approval.

“That’s not funny,” said Corcoran acidly.

“Lighten yourself up, Melissa,” Volkonsky shot back, tilting up his chin, the tuft of hair on it quivering with sudden anger. “Don’t PC me.”

Corcoran turned to Ford. “He can’t help it. His doctorate was in horse’s-assery.”

More history, thought Ford. He would have to be careful to avoid getting hit in the crossfire until he figured out just where everyone stood in relation to one another.

Volkonsky said, “I think Melissa has drink the wine a little too well this evening. As usual.”

“Ja, of courrrse,” she drawled, in a devastating imitation of Volkonsky’s accent. “Better I shoot vodkas like you, late in ze night!” She raised her glass, “Za vas!” and downed the heel of wine.

“Now, if I may interrupt for a moment,” Innes began, his voice rotund with professionalism. “While it’s good to get feelings into the open, I would suggest—”

Hazelius waved him silent and looked steadily at Volkonsky and Corcoran, back and forth, the pressure of his gaze inducing silence. Volkonsky sat back, the corner of his mouth twitching. Corcoran crossed her arms.

Hazelius allowed the awkwardness to build before he said, “We’re all a little tired and discouraged.” His voice was low and mild. In the silence, the fire crackled. “Right, Peter?”

Volkonsky said nothing.

“Melissa?”

Her face was red. She nodded curtly.

“Just let it go . . . . Easy does it . . . . Forgiveness and mildness . . . For the sake of our work.”

His voice was calm, soothing, with a rhythmical, hypnotic quality—like a trainer calming a spooked horse. Unlike Innes’s, it held no trace of condescension.

“That’s right,” said Innes, jumping in, his voice shattering the extraordinary calm Hazelius had created. “Absolutely. This has been a healthy exchange. We can air some of these same issues at the next group meeting. As I said, it’s good to get these issues out in the open.”

Volkonsky stood up so abruptly, he knocked his chair over. He balled up his napkin and chucked it on the table. “Screw group meeting. I have work to do.”

The door slammed as he departed.

No one spoke. The only sound was the rustle of paper as Edelstein, having finished his dinner, turned another page of Finnegans Wake.

8

PASTOR RUSS EDDY EXITED THE TRAILER, threw a towel over his skinny shoulders, and paused in the yard. Monday had dawned brilliantly clear at the mission. The rising sun threw a golden light across the sandy valley, gilding the branches of the dead cottonwood next to the little house trailer. Behind, Red Mesa rose up gigantically on the horizon, a pillar of fire in the early morning sun.

He looked up to the sky, placed his palms together, bowed, and said, his voice clear and strong, “Thank You, Lord, for this day.”

After a moment of silence, he shuffled over to the Red Jacket pump in his front yard and tossed the towel over an old hitching post. He gave the handle a dozen energetic creaks. A stream of cold water gushed out into a galvanized washtub below. Russ dashed a handful on his face, slipped a cake of soap into the water, sudsed up, shaved, and brushed his teeth. He washed his face and arms, dashed more water over his face and concave chest, plucked the towel off the post, and gave himself a vigorous drying off. Then he inspected himself in the mirror hung on a rusty nail in the fence post. His face was small, thin tufts of hair on his head sticking out. He hated his body; he looked like a wobbly little bird. Long ago, the doctor had told his mother it was a “failure to thrive.” The implication that his physical weakness was somehow his fault, a personal failure, still stung.

He combed the hair carefully over the thinning spots, grimaced, inspected the crooked teeth he could never afford to get fixed. Somehow, he was reminded of his son, Luke—he’d be eleven now—and the feeling of anguish deepened. He hadn’t seen Luke in six years, all the while being stuck with child support he had no hope of paying. A sudden vision of the boy flashed through his mind—the way he ran all skinny through a sprinkler one hot summer day . . . . The memory was like a knife slitting his throat—the way he had seen a Navajo woman slit the throat of a lamb, which struggled and bleated, still living but already dead.

He trembled, thinking of the injustices of his life, his money problems, his wife’s unfaithfulness, the divorce. He had been victimized again and again, through no fault of his own. He had come to the Rez with nothing but his faith and two cartons of books. God was testing his faith with a hardscrabble existence and a constant shortage of money. Eddy hated owing money all over, especially to Indians. But the Lord must know what He was doing, and Eddy was slowly building his congregation, even if they seemed more interested in the free clothing he gave away than in the sermon. None of them ever laid more than a few dollars in the collection basket—some weeks it held only twenty dollars. And a lot of them went on to Mass at the Catholic Mission to load up on free eyeglasses and medicine, or the LDS Church in Rough Rock, for the food bank. That was the trouble with the Navajos: they couldn’t tell the voice of Mammon from the voice of God.

He paused for a moment to look around for Lorenzo, but his Navajo helper had not yet made his appearance. At the thought of Lorenzo, he flushed. The collection-plate money had disappeared for the third time, and now he had no doubt it was Lorenzo. It was only fifty-odd dollars, but it was fifty dollars his mission desperately needed—and, worse, it was stealing from the Lord. Lorenzo’s soul was in danger for a lousy fifty bucks.

Eddy was fed up. Last week he had decided to fire Lorenzo, but for that he needed proof. And he would soon have it. Yesterday, between the collection and the end of the service, he had marked the bills in the collection plate with a yellow highlighter. He’d asked the trader in Blue Gap to keep an eye out for anyone spending them.

Pulling on his T-shirt, he stretched his skinny arms and glanced over his humble mission with a mixture of affection and disgust. The trailer he lived in was falling apart. Near it stood the ProPanel hay barn he had bought from a rancher in Shiprock, disassembled, transported, and reerected to be his church. A backbreaking labor. Plastic chairs in different sizes, shapes, and colors substituted for pews. The “church” was open along three of the four sides, and during his sermon yesterday the wind kicked up and blew sand through the congregation. The only thing he owned of any value was back in the trailer, an iMac Intel Core Duo with a twenty-inch screen, sent to him by a Christian tourist passing through Navajoland who had been impressed by his mission. The computer was a godsend, his lifeline to the world beyond the Rez. He spent many hours a day on it, visiting Christian newsgroups and chat rooms, sending and receiving e-mail, and organizing donations of clothing.

Eddy walked into the church and began straightening out the chairs, putting them back in neat rows, and sweeping the sand off the seats with a hand brush. As he worked, he thought about Lorenzo and he became angrier, banging the chairs around and shoving them roughly into place. This was something Lorenzo was supposed to do.

When he finished adjusting the chairs, he carried a push broom to the wooden preaching platform and started sweeping the sand off the far end. As he swept, he saw Lorenzo appear in the yard. Finally. The Navajo always walked the two miles from Blue Gap, and he had a tendency to arrive silently, unexpectedly, like a ghost.

Eddy straightened up and leaned on the broom handle as the young Navajo walked into the shade of the church.

“Hello, Lorenzo,” said Eddy, trying to keep his voice even. “May the Lord bless you and guide you today.”

Lorenzo flipped his long braids back. “Hi.”

Eddy scrutinized his sullen face for signs of drug or liquor intoxication, but the eyes slid away from his as Lorenzo silently took the broom from his hands and began sweeping. Navajos were hard to read, but Lorenzo was harder than most, a loner, silent, keeping his own council. It was hard to tell if anything was going on in that head of his, beyond a craving for drugs and alcohol. Eddy couldn’t recall a single instance in which Lorenzo had ever spoken a complete sentence. Incredible to think he’d attended Columbia University, even if he didn’t graduate.

Eddy stepped back and watched Lorenzo sweep, his strokes slow and inefficient, leaving streaks of sand. He suppressed the urge to say something to Lorenzo now about the collection money. Eddy himself barely had enough to eat, and he had had to borrow money for gas again, and here was Lorenzo stealing God’s money, no doubt to buy drugs or liquor. He felt a growing agitation at the thought of confronting Lorenzo. But he had to wait to hear from the trader first, because he needed proof. If he accused Lorenzo and the boy denied it—which he would, the liar—what could he do without proof?

“When you finish up here, Lorenzo, could you please sort through the clothing that just came?” He pointed to several boxes that had arrived on Friday from a church in Arkansas.

The man grunted to signify he had heard. Eddy watched his fumbled sweeping a few moments longer. Lorenzo was high, there was no question about it—he had stolen the collection to buy drugs. And now Eddy wouldn’t be able to get through the week without borrowing money for gas and food.

He trembled wth rage—but he said nothing, turned, and walked stiffly back into the trailer to make his meager breakfast.

9

FORD PAUSED AT THE THRESHOLD OF the barn. The Monday morning sun slanted in, lighting up a storm of dust motes. He could hear the sounds of horses shifting in their stalls, munching feed. He ventured inside and walked down the center aisle, stopping to look at the horse in the first stall. A paint horse, working a mouthful of oats, looked back at him.

“What’s your name, pardner?”

The horse nickered, then lowered his head to scoop up another mouthful.

A pail rattled toward the other end of the barn. He turned to see a head poke out of the far stall: Kate Mercer.

They stared at each other.

“Morning,” said Ford, mustering what he hoped passed for an easy smile.

“Morning.”

“Assistant director, string theorist, cook, and . . . stable hand? You’re a woman of many talents.” He tried to keep his voice light. There were other talents of hers he’d been hard-pressed to keep out of his mind.

“You might say that.”

She pressed the back of a gloved hand against her forehead, then walked over, carrying a pail of grain. A wisp of straw was tangled in her glossy hair. She wore tight jeans and a battered denim jacket over a white, crisp man’s shirt. It was unbuttoned at the collar, and he glimpsed the soft swell of her breasts.

Ford swallowed, unable to think of anything to say except an inane “You cut your hair.”

“Hair does have that tendency to grow, yes.”

He wouldn’t rise to the bait. “It looks nice,” he said blandly.

“It’s sort of my version of a traditional Japanese hairstyle called umano-o.”

Kate’s hair had always been a touchy point. Her Japanese mother did not want her daughter to be Japanese in any way. She refused to allow Japanese to be spoken in the house, and insisted Kate wear her hair long and loose, like an all-American girl. Kate had given in on the hair, but when her mother began hinting that Ford would make an ideal American husband, it made her look all the harder for flaws.

It occurred to Ford what the new hairstyle must mean.

“Your mother?”

“She passed away four years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

A pause. “Going for a ride?” Kate asked.

“I was thinking about it.”

“I didn’t know you knew how to ride.”

“I spent a summer at a dude ranch when I was ten.”

“In that case, I wouldn’t advise riding Snort.” She nodded to the paint. “Where do you plan to go?”

Ford shuffled a USGS map from his pocket and unfolded it. “I wanted to pay a visit to Blackhorse to see the medicine man. By car it looks like twenty miles over bad roads. But it’s only six miles by horse, if you take the trail on the back side of the mesa.”

Kate took the map and examined it. “That’s the Midnight Trail. Not for novice riders.”

“It’ll save me hours.”

“I’d still take the Jeep if I were you.”

“I don’t want to arrive in a car emblazoned with government logos.”

“Hmmm. I see your point.”

They lapsed into silence.

“All right,” said Kate. “The horse you want is Ballew.” She lifted a halter off a hook, entered a stall, and led out a dirt-colored horse with a ewe neck, rattail, and a big hay belly.

“He looks like a reject from the dog-food factory.”

“Don’t judge a horse by his looks. Old Ballew here’s bombproof. And he’s smart enough to keep his cool going down the Midnight Trail. Grab the saddle and pad off that rack and let’s tack up.”

They brushed and saddled the horse, bridled it, and led it outside.

“You know how to mount?” she asked.

Ford looked at her. “Foot in the stirrup, step up—right?”

She held the reins to him.

Ford fumbled with the reins, looped one over the horse’s neck, held the stirrup, and stuck his foot in.

“Wait, you need to—”

But he was already swinging up. The saddle slipped sideways and Ford stumbled to the ground, landing on his butt in the dirt. Ballew stood there indifferently, saddle hanging sideways on his flank.

“I was going to say, you need to check the cinch.” She seemed to be stifling a laugh.

Ford got up, slapping off the dust. “Is that how you break in the dudes out here?”

“I tried to warn you.”

“Well, I’d best be off.”

She shook her head. “Of all the places in the world you could be, I can’t believe you’re here.”

“You don’t sound happy.”

“I’m not.”

Ford suppressed a retort. He had a job to do. “I got over all that a long time ago. I hope you can, too.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that—I’m so over it. It’s just that I don’t need this kind of complication right now.”

“And what complication is that?” Ford asked.

“Forget it.”

Ford fell silent. He wasn’t going to get embroiled in anything personal with Kate. Keep your mind on the mission. “You heading back into the Bunker today?” he asked lightly, after a moment.

“Afraid so.”

“More problems?”

Her eyes slid—warily, he thought. “Maybe.”

“What kind?”

She looked up at him, looked away. “Hardware glitches.”

“Hazelius told me it was software.”

“That, too.” Again her eyes looked away.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

She faced him directly, her mahogany eyes veiled and troubled. “No.”

“Is it something . . . serious?”

She hesitated. “Wyman? You do your job and let us do ours—okay?”

She turned abruptly and walked back toward the barn. Ford watched her until she vanished into the shadowed interior.

10

RIDING BALLEW, FORD GRADUALLY RELAXED, TRYING to keep his mind off Kate, where it had been dwelling far too much for his liking. It was one of those glorious late summer days, tinged with melancholy, that reminded him the season would soon be over. Snakeweed bloomed golden among the dry grasses. Prickly pears were turning furzy with spines, and the tips of the Apache plumes had traded their blossoms for the puffs of red-and-white feathers that signaled autumn’s approach.

The trail petered out, and Ford continued cross-country, navigating by compass. Ancient corkscrewed junipers and hoodoo rock formations made the mesa top feel prehistoric. He crossed the track of a bear in sand, the paw prints looking almost human. Shush, the long-forgotten Navajo word for “bear” popped into his head.

Forty minutes later, he reached the edge of the mesa. The cliff dropped away sheer for a few hundred feet before stepping down through shelves of sandstone toward Blackhorse, two thousand feet below. The settlement looked like a cluster of geometric marks on the desert, about a half mile from the base of the mesa.

Ford got off and searched the edge of the cliffs until he found the slot in the rimrock where the Midnight Trail descended. It was marked on the map as an old uranium prospecting road, but rockfalls, landslides, and washouts had turned it into an intermittent track. It plunged through the rimrock and switchbacked down the face before crossing a rib of mesa and zigzagging down more switchbacks to the bottom. Just tracing the line of the trail, in places barely more than a few feet wide, made him dizzy. Maybe he should have taken the Jeep after all. But he sure as hell wasn’t turning around.

He led Ballew to the edge and began walking down, trailing the horse. Unfazed, the horse lowered his head, gave a sniff, and followed Ford down. He felt a twinge of admiration, even affection, for the old gutbucket.

Half an hour later they emerged at the bottom. Ford mounted and rode the last bit of trail down a shallow tamarisk-shaded canyon to Blackhorse. Cow pens, corrals, a windmill, a water tank, and a dozen shabby trailers completed the town. Behind one trailer stood several eight-sided hogans built of split cedar, with mud roofs. Near the center of town, a half dozen preschool children romped on a dilapidated swing set, their voices shrill in the desert’s emptiness. Pickup trucks were parked beside the trailers.

Ford nudged Ballew with his heels. The old horse moved slowly over the flats on the outskirts of town. A steady wind blew. The children stopped playing and stood like miniature statues, watching him. Then, as if on cue, they ran off squealing.

Ford halted Ballew fifty feet from the closest trailer and waited. He knew, from Ramah, that Navajo personal space began well before the front door. A moment later a door banged, and a rangy man in a cowboy hat with bowlegs came hobbling down from one of the trailers. He raised his hand to Ford. “Tie your horse over there,” he called, over the sound of the wind.

Ford dismounted, tied Ballew, and loosened the flank cinch. The man approached, shielding his eyes from the bright sun. “Who are you?”

Ford stuck out his hand. “Yá‘át’ééh shi éí Wyman Ford yinishyé.”

“Oh no, not another Bilagaana trying to speak Navajo!” the man said cheerfully, then added, “at least your accent is better than most.”

“Thanks.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for Nelson Begay.”

“You found him.”

“Got a moment?”

Begay squinted, looked at him more closely. “You come down off the mesa?”

“I did.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

Begay said, “That’s a hell of a trail.”

“Not if you walk your horse.”

“Smart man.” Another awkward pause. “You’re . . . you’re from the government, then?”

“Yes.”

Begay squinted at him again, gave a snort, then turned and limped back to the trailer. A moment later the door slammed. Silence took over the town of Blackhorse, except for the wind, unfurling skeins of yellow dust around Ford as if weaving a blanket.

Now what? Ford stood in the swirling dust, feeling like an idiot. If he knocked on the door, Begay wouldn’t answer, and all he’d do is establish himself as another pushy Bilagaana. On the other hand, he had come here to speak to Begay, and speak to Begay he would.

Screw it, the guy can’t stay in his trailer forever. Ford sat down.

The minutes dragged on. The wind blew. The dust swirled.

Ten minutes passed. A stink beetle marched purposely through the dust on some mysterious errand, becoming a little black dot as it went off and disappeared. His mind wandered, and he thought about Kate, their relationship, the long journey his life had made since then. Inevitably, his thoughts turned to his wife. Her death had wrecked any sense of security he had felt in life. Before, he hadn’t known how arbitrary life could be. Tragedy happened to others. Okay, lesson learned. It could happen to him. Move on.

He saw the faint movement of a curtain in a window, which suggested Begay was watching him.

He wondered how long it would take the guy to get the message that he wasn’t moving. He hoped soon—sand was starting to filter into his pants, work itself into his boots, sift down his socks.

The door slammed, and Begay came stomping out on the wooden stoop, arms crossed, looking mightily annoyed. He squinted at Ford and then shambled down the rickety wooden steps and came over. He extended his hand and helped Ford up.

“You’re about the patientest goddamn white man I ever met. I suppose you’ll have to come in. Broom yourself off before you ruin my new sofa.”

Ford slapped off the dust and followed Begay into the living room, and they sat down.

“Coffee?”

“Thanks.”

Begay returned with mugs of liquid as watery as tea. Ford remembered this, too—to save money, Navajos used the same coffee grounds multiple times.

“Milk? Sugar?”

“No, thanks.”

Begay heaped sugar into his mug, followed by a good pour of half-and-half from a carton.

Ford took in the room. The brown crushed-velvet sofa he sat on looked anything but new. Begay eased himself into a broken Barcalounger. An expensive giant-screen television set sat in one corner, the only thing of any value in the house as far as he could see. The wall behind it was plastered with family photographs, many showing young men in military uniform.

Ford turned a curious gaze on Begay. The medicine man wasn’t what he had expected—neither a young, fiery activist nor a wise and wrinkled elder. He was lanky, with neatly trimmed hair, and looked to be in his early forties. Instead of the cowboy boots most Navajo men wore in Ramah, Begay wore high-top Keds, battered and faded, their rubber toe-caps peeling off. The only gesture to being Native American was a necklace of chunk turquoise.

“All right, now what is it you want with me?” He spoke in a soft wood wind voice with that peculiar Navajo accent that seemed to give weight to each word.

Ford gestured to the wall with his head. “Your family?”

“Nephews.”

“They’re in the military?”

“Army. One’s stationed in South Korea. The other, Lorenzo, finished a tour in Iraq and now he’s . . .” A hesitation. “Back home.”

“You must be proud of them.”

“I am.”

Another silence. “I hear you’re leading a protest ride against the Isabella project.”

No answer.

“Well, that’s why I’m here. To listen to your concerns.”

Begay crossed his arms. “Too late for listening.”

“Try me.”

Begay uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. “Nobody asked people around here if we wanted this Isabella. The whole deal was done down in Window Rock. They get the money and we get nothing. They told us there’d be jobs—then you people brought in construction workers from outside. They said it would bring economic development—but you people truck in your food and supplies from Flagstaff. Not once have you folks shopped in our local stores in Blue Gap or Rough Rock. You built your housing in an Anasazi valley, desecrating graves, and took away grazing land that we were still using, without compensation. And now we’re hearing talk about smashing atoms and radiation.”

He placed his big hands on his knees and glared at Ford.

Ford nodded. “I hear you.”

“I’m glad you’re not deaf. You’re so damn ignorant of us, I bet you don’t even know what time it is.” He arched his eyebrows quizzically. “Go ahead—tell me what time you think it is.”

Ford knew he was being set up in some way but played along anyway. “Nine.”

“Wrong!” said Begay triumphantly. It’s ten.“

“Ten?”

“That’s right. Here on the Big Rez, half the year we’re in a different time zone from the rest of Arizona, half the year in the same zone. In the summer, when you enter the Rez, we’re one hour later than the rest of the state. Hours and minutes are a Bilagaana invention anyway, but the point is, you geniuses up there know so little about us that you don’t even have your clocks set right.”

Ford looked at him evenly. “Mr. Begay, if you’re willing to work with me to make some real changes, I promise you I’ll do all I can. You’ve got some legitimate grievances.”

“Who are you, a scientist?”

“I’m an anthropologist.”

There was a sudden silence. Then Begay eased himself back. A dry laugh shook his frame. “An anthropologist. Like we’re some kind of primitive tribe. Oh, that’s funny.” He stopped laughing. “Well, I’m an American, just like you. I got relatives fighting for my country. I don’t like you folks coming out here to my mesa, building a machine that’s scaring the hell out of everyone, making a lot of promises you don’t keep, and now they send an anthropologist like we’re savages with bones through our noses.”

“They sent me here only because I spent time over in Ramah. What I’d like to do is invite you up to the Isabella project for a tour, to meet Gregory Hazelius, to see what we’re doing, to get acquainted with the team.”

Begay shook his head. “The time for tours is over.” He paused, then asked, almost reluctantly, “What kind of research are you doing over there? I been hearing some weird stories.”

“Investigating the Big Bang.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s the theory that the universe came into existence thirteen billion years ago in an explosion and has been expanding outward ever since.”

“In other words, you people are shoving your noses into the Creator’s business.”

“The Creator didn’t give us brains for nothing.”

“So you all don’t believe that a Creator made the universe.”

“I’m Catholic, Mr. Begay. In my view, the Big Bang was simply how He did it.”

Begay sighed. “Like I said: enough talk. We’re riding up the mesa on Friday. That’s the message you can take back to your team. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.”

FORD RODE BALLEW BACK TO WHERE the trail ascended. He looked up at the boulders and crags and cliffs. Now that he knew Ballew could navigate the switchbacks and rough spots, there was no reason to walk. He would ride the old horse.

When they passed through the rock opening at the top of the mesa an hour later, Ballew burst into a trot, eager to get back to the barn. Ford clung to the saddlehorn in a panic, thankful there was nobody around to see what a fool he must look. At around one o’clock Nakai Rock loomed up, and the low bluffs around the valley came into view. As he rode down into the cottonwoods, he heard a harsh laugh and saw a figure walking furiously along the path from Isabella to the settlement.

It was Volkonsky, the computer programmer, his long greasy hair in disarray. He looked haggard and angry, but at the same time he was grinning like a madman.

Ford hauled Ballew to a stop, dismounted quickly, and used the horse to block the trail.

“Hello.”

“Excuse me,” said Volkonsky, trying to dodge around.

“Nice day, don’t you think?”

Volkonsky halted and stared, his face full of furious mirth. “You ask: Is it nice day? And I answer you: Never been better day!”

“Is that so?” Ford asked.

“And why is that your business, Mr. Anthropologist?” He tilted his head, his brown teeth exposed in a grimace of false hilarity.

Ford stepped so close, he could have touched the Russian. “From the way you look, I’d say you’re having anything but a nice day.”

Volkonsky laid a hand on Ford’s shoulder in an exaggerated, mock-friendly way and leaned forward. A wash of liquor and tobacco-laden breath enveloped Ford. “Before, I worry. Now I am fine!” He tilted his head back and roared with harsh laughter, his unshaven Adam’s apple bobbing.

The sound of steps came from behind. Volkonsky straightened abruptly.

“Ah, Peter,” said Wardlaw, approaching down the trail. “And Wyman Ford. Greetings.” His voice, pleasant and oddly ironic, emphasized the final word.

Volkonsky started at the salutation.

“Coming from the Bunker, Peter?” Wardlaw’s words seemed laced with menace.

Volkonsky maintained the manic grin, but Ford now saw uneasiness in his eyes—or was it fear?

“The security log says you were there all night,” Wardlaw continued. “I’m worried about you. I hope you’re getting enough sleep, Peter.”

Silently, Volkonsky stepped past him and walked stiffly down the trail.

Wardlaw turned to Ford as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Nice day for a ride.”

“We were just chatting about that,” said Ford dryly.

“Where’d you go?”

“I went to Blackhorse to meet the medicine man.”

“And?”

“We met.”

Wardlaw shook his head. “That Volkonsky . . . he’s always worked up about something.” He took a step down the trail, then stopped. “He didn’t say anything . . . odd to you, did he?”

“Such as?” Ford asked.

Wardlaw shrugged. “Who knows? The man’s a little unstable.”

Ford watched Wardlaw strolling off, meaty paws thrust in his pockets—a man like the rest of them, close to the breaking point, only far better at hiding it.

11

EDDY STOOD OUTSIDE HIS TRAILER, A glass of cold water in his hand, watching the sun sink toward the distant horizon. Lorenzo was nowhere to be seen—he had disappeared sometime around noon, vanished as silently as he had come, without having finished his chores. A heap of unsorted clothing lay on a table and the sand around the church hadn’t yet been raked. Eddy stared at the distant horizon, burning with resentment. He never should have agreed to take in Lorenzo. The young man had been in prison for involuntary manslaughter, plea-bargained down from second-degree murder—knifed someone in a drunken brawl in Gallup. Served only eighteen months. Eddy had agreed to hire him, at the request of a local family, to help him satisfy his conditions of parole.

Big mistake.

Eddy took a sip of the cool water, trying to suppress the hot resentment and anger that boiled inside him. He hadn’t heard yet from the trader in Blue Gap, but he had no doubt he would soon. And when that happened, he would have the proof he needed and could get rid of Lorenzo for good—send him back to prison, where he belonged. Eighteen months for murder—no wonder the crime rate on the Rez was sky high.

He took another sip and was surprised to see the faint outline of a man, walking down the road toward the mission, silhouetted against the setting sun. He stared, squinting.

Lorenzo.

Even as he approached he could see, from Lorenzo’s uncertain gait, that the man was drunk. Eddy crossed his arms and waited, his heart accelerating at the thought of the coming confrontation. He would not let it pass—not this time.

Lorenzo came to the gate, leaned for a moment on the post, then came in.

“Lorenzo?”

The Navajo slowly turned his head. His eyes were bloodshot, his silly braids half undone, the bandanna around his head askew. He looked terrible, his whole frame stooped, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders.

“Come here, please. I’d like to have a word with you.”

Lorenzo merely looked at him.

“Lorenzo, didn’t you hear me?”

The Indian turned and shambled on toward the clothes pile.

Eddy quickly moved and stood in Lorenzo’s path, blocking him. The Indian stopped and raised his head, looking at him. The sour smell of bourbon washed over him.

“Lorenzo, you know very well that drinking alcoholic beverages is a violation of your parole.”

Lorenzo just stared.

“You also left without finishing your work. I’m supposed to certify to your parole officer that you’re doing an adequate job here, and I won’t lie to him. I won’t lie. I’m letting you go.”

Lorenzo dropped his head. For a moment Eddy thought it was a gesture of contrition, but then he heard a hawking sound, as Lorenzo scoured up a gob of phlegm and slipped it from his lips, depositing it into the sand at Eddy’s feet like a raw oyster.

Eddy felt his heart pounding. He was furiously angry. “Don’t you spit when I’m talking to you, mister,” he said, his voice high.

Lorenzo tried to take a step to the side to go around Eddy, but the pastor quickly stepped in his way again. “Are you listening to me, or are you too drunk?”

The Indian just stood there.

“Where’d you get the money for liquor?”

Lorenzo lifted his hand, let it drop heavily.

“I asked you a question.”

“A guy owed me.” His voice was hoarse.

“Is that so? Which guy?”

“Don’t know his name.”

“You don’t know his name,” repeated Eddy.

Lorenzo made another halfhearted attempt to go around, which Eddy blocked. He felt his hands trembling. “I happen to know where you got that money. You stole it. From the collection plate.”

“No way.”

“Yes way. You stole it. Over fifty dollars.”

“Bullshit.”

“Don’t swear at me, Lorenzo. I saw you take it.” The lie was out before he even realized he was telling it. But it didn’t matter; he might as well have seen him—guilt was written all over his face.

Lorenzo said nothing.

“That was fifty dollars of money that this mission desperately needs. But you didn’t just steal from the mission. You didn’t just steal from me. You stole from the Lord.”

No response.

“How do you think the Lord will react to that? Did you think about that when you took the money, Lorenzo? And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

Lorenzo turned brusquely and began walking the other way, back toward town. Eddy lunged forward and grabbed his shirt at the shoulder. Lorenzo jerked his shoulder away and kept going. Suddenly he veered and went off toward the trailer.

“Where are you going?” Eddy cried. “Don’t go in there!”

Lorenzo disappeared inside. Eddy ran after him, pausing at the door. “Get out of there!” He hesitated to follow him inside, fearful of being jumped. “You’re a thief!” he shouted in. “That’s what you are. A common thief. Get out of my house now! I’m calling the police!”

A crash came from the kitchen, a silverware drawer flung across the room.

“You’ll pay for the damage! Every cent!”

Another crash, more scattered flatware. Eddy desperately wanted to go in, but he was afraid. At least the drunk Indian was in the kitchen and not in the back bedroom where his computer was.

“Get out of there, you drunkard! Human garbage! You’re dirt in the eyes of Jesus! I’m reporting this to your parole officer and you’ll go back to prison! I guarantee it!”

Suddenly Lorenzo appeared in the entryway, a long bread knife in his hand.

Eddy backed up and off the stoop. “Lorenzo. No.”

Lorenzo stood on the stoop, uncertainly, waving the knife and blinking in the setting sunlight. He did not advance.

“Drop the knife, Lorenzo. Drop it.”

His hand lowered.

“Drop it, now.” Eddy could see his whitened grip on the handle relaxing. “Drop it or Jesus will punish you.”

A gargle of rage suddenly came from Lorenzo’s throat. “I screw your Jesus up the ass, like this!” He jabbed the knife into the air so violently that it almost threw him off balance.

Eddy staggered back, the words landing on him like a kick to the gut. “How—dare—you— blaspheme our Savior? You sick—you evil man! You’ll burn in hell, Satan! You—!” Eddy’s high-pitched voice was choked off by hysteria.

A raucous, phlegmy laugh erupted from Lorenzo’s throat. He waved the knife around, grinning, as if enjoying Eddy’s horror. “That’s right,up the ass.”

“You’ll burn in hell!” Eddy cried, with a rush of courage. “You’ll call on Jesus to moisten your parched lips, but He won’t be listening. Because you’re scum. Human garbage scum!”

Lorenzo spat again. “Right on.”

“God will strike you down, mark my words. He will smite you and curse you, blasphemer! You stole from Him, you dirty Indian thief!”

Lorenzo rushed at Eddy. But the preacher was small and quick, and as the knife came at him in a wide, inefficient arc, Eddy skipped aside and seized Lorenzo’s forearm in both his hands. The Navajo struggled, trying to turn the knife back on Eddy, but Eddy held on with both hands like a terrier, twisting and wrenching the arm, trying to shake the knife loose.

Lorenzo grunted, strained, but in his drunken state he didn’t have the strength. His arm suddenly went limp and Eddy held on.

“Drop the knife.”

Lorenzo stood there, uncertainly. Eddy, seeing his chance, threw a shoulder into Lorenzo, spinning him sideways, and grabbed the knife. Losing his footing, Eddy fell backward with Lorenzo falling on top of his chest. Even as Lorenzo fell, however, Eddy had taken the knife by the handle. Lorenzo fell on it, the knife impaling his heart fore and aft. Eddy felt hot blood gush on his hands and with a cry he released the blade and pulled himself out from under the Navajo. The knife was in Lorenzo’s chest, right over his heart.

“No!”

Incredibly, Lorenzo rose to his feet, the knife sticking out of his chest. Staggering back, with one final effort he wrapped both his hands hard around the knife handle. He stood there for a moment, hands gripping the handle, straining to pull it out with rapidly ebbing strength, his face blank, his eyes filming over. Toppling forward, he fell heavily into the sand, the force of the fall driving the point of the knife out his back.

Eddy stared, his mouth working. Below the supine body, he saw a pool of blood running into the sand, soaking into the thirsty ground, leaving jellylike clots on the surface.

The first thought Eddy had was, I will not be a victim again.

THE SUN HAD LONG SET AND a chill was in the air by the time Eddy finished the hole. The sand was soft and dry and he had dug it deep—very deep.

He paused, drenched in sweat and shivering at the same time. He climbed out of the hole, pulled up the ladder, placed his foot against the body, and rolled it in. It landed with a wet thump.

Working with great care, he shoveled all the bloody sand into the hole, digging down as far as it went, not missing a grain. Then he stripped off his clothes and tossed them in next. Finally, in went the bloody bucket of water he had washed his hands in, bucket and all, followed by the towel he had dried himself with.

He stood shivering at the edge of the dark hole, stark naked. Should he pray? But the blasphemer deserved no prayer—and what good would prayer do for someone already writhing and shrieking in the blast furnaces of hell? Eddy had said God would smite him down, and not fifteen seconds later God had done just that. God had directed the blasphemer’s hand against himself. Eddy had actually witnessed it—had seen the miracle.

Still naked, Eddy filled in the hole, shovelful by shovelful, working hard to keep up his body warmth. By midnight he was finished. He raked out the evidence of his work, put away his tools, and went into the trailer.

As Pastor Eddy lay in bed that night, praying as hard as he had ever prayed in his life, he heard the night wind come up, as it so often did. It moaned and rocked and rattled the old trailer, the sand hissing against the windows. By morning, Eddy thought, the yard would be swept clean by the wind, a smooth expanse of virgin sand, all trace of the incident erased.

The Lord is scouring the ground clean for me, just as he forgives me and scours clean the sin from my soul.

Eddy lay in the dark, shaking and triumphant.

12

THAT EVENING, BOOKER CRAWLEY FOLLOWED THE maître d‘ to the back of the dim steak house in McLean, Virginia, and found the Reverend D. T. Spates already parked at a table, perusing the five-pound leather-bound menu.

“Reverend Spates, how good to see you again.” He took the man’s hand.

“A pleasure, Mr. Crawley.”

Crawley took his seat, shook out the elegant twist of linen that was his napkin, and strung it across his lap.

A cocktail waiter glided over. “May I get you gentlemen anything to drink?”

“Seven and seven,” said the reverend.

Crawley cringed, glad he had picked a restaurant where no one would recognize him. The reverend smelled of Old Spice, and his sideburns were a centimeter too long. In person he looked twenty years older than on-screen, his face liver-spotted and mottled with that reddish sandpaper texture that marked the drinking man. His orange hair glistened in the indirect light. How could a man with so much media savvy tolerate such a cheap hair job?

“And you, sir?”

“Bombay Sapphire martini, very dry, straight up with a twist.”

“Right away, gentlemen.”

Crawley mustered a broad smile. “Well, Reverend, I saw your show last night. It was . . . terrific.”

Spates nodded, a plump, manicured hand tapping the tablecloth. “The Lord was with me.”

“I was wondering if you’ve received any feedback.”

“Sure did. My office has logged over eighty thousand e-mails in the last twenty-four hours.”

A silence. “Eighteen thousand?”

“No, sir. Eighty thousand.”

Crawley was speechless. “From whom?” he asked finally.

“Viewers, of course.”

“Am I right in assuming this is an unusual response?”

“That you are. The sermon really touched a nerve. When the government spends taxpayer money to put the lie to the Word of God—well, Christians everywhere rise up.”

“Yes, of course.” Crawley managed a smile of agreement. Eighty thousand. That would scare the piss out of any congressman. He paused as the waiter brought their drinks.

Spates wrapped a plump hand around his frosty glass, took a long drink, set it down.

“Now there’s this matter of the pledge you made to God’s Prime Time Ministry.”

“Naturally.” Crawley touched his jacket above the inner pocket. “All in good time.”

Spates took another sip. “What’s the reaction in Washington?”

Crawley’s contacts had learned that a significant number of e-mails had also arrived for various congressmen, along with heavy telephone traffic. But it wouldn’t do to inflate Spates’s expectations. “An issue like this needs to be pushed awhile before it penetrates the hard shell of Washington.”

“That isn’t what I heard from my viewers. Lots of those e-mails were copied to Washington.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said Crawley hastily.

The waiter came by and took their order.

“Now, if you don’t mind,” said Spates, “I’d like to collect that donation before the food comes. I wouldn’t want to get grease on it.”

“No, no, of course not.” Crawley slipped the envelope out of his pocket and laid it unobtrusively on the table, then cringed as Spates reached over and held it up ostentatiously. Spates’s jacket sleeve slipped back, exposing a meaty wrist well furred in orange hair. So the orange was real. How could the thing that seemed most fake about Spates turn out to be the one real thing? Was there something else, more urgent, that he was missing about this man? Crawley pushed down his irritation.

Spates turned the envelope over and tore it open with a lacquered fingernail. He slid out the check, held it to the light, and examined it closely.

“Ten thousand dollars,” he read slowly.

Crawley glanced around, relieved they were alone in the back of the restaurant. The man had no class at all.

Spates continued to study the check. “Ten thousand dollars,” he repeated.

“I trust it’s in good order?”

The reverend slid the check back into the envelope and stuffed it inside his jacket. “You know how much it costs to run my ministry? Five thousand a day. Thirty-five thousand a week, almost two million a year.”

“That’s quite an operation,” said Crawley evenly.

“I devoted an entire hour of my sermon to your problem. I hope to take it up again on Roundtable America this Friday. You watch it?”

“Never miss it.” Crawley knew the Christian Cable Service aired Spates’s weekly talk show, but he’d never seen it.

“I plan to keep on top of this until I’ve aroused the righteous anger of Christians across this land.”

“I’m very grateful, Reverend.”

“For this, ten thousand dollars is hardly a drop in the bucket.”

Goddamned Holy Joe, thought Crawley. How he hated to deal with people like this. “Reverend, forgive me, but I was under the impression that you would take up the issue in return for a one-time donation.”

“And I did: one-time donation, one-time sermon. Now I’m talking about a relationship.” Spates tipped the glass up to his wet lips, drained the last of the drink through the column of ice cubes, replaced the glass on the table, and wiped his mouth.

“I handed you an excellent issue. Judging from the reaction, it seems worth pushing, regardless of the, ah, pecuniary aspects.”

“My friend, there’s a war on faith going on out there. We’re fighting the secular humanists on multiple fronts. I could shift my battle lines at any moment. If you want me to keep fighting at your salient, well, then—you’ve got to contribute.”

The waiter brought their filets mignons. Spates had ordered his well done, and the thirty-nine-dollar cut of meat was now the size, shape, and color of a hockey puck. Spates clasped his hands and bowed over the plate. It took Crawley a moment to realize he was blessing his food, not smelling it.

“Can I get you gentlemen anything else?” the waiter asked.

The reverend raised his head and lifted his glass. “Another.” He narrowed his eyes at the waiter’s departing form. “I believe that man’s a homosexual.”

Crawley took a long level breath. “So what kind of a relationship are you suggesting, Reverend?”

“A quid pro quo. You scratch my back; I scratch yours.”

Crawley waited.

“Say, five thousand a week, with a guarantee I’ll mention the Isabella project in each sermon and take it up on at least one cable show.”

So that’s how it was going to be. “Ten thousand a month,” said Crawley coolly, “with a guaranteed minimum of ten minutes devoted to the topic in each sermon. As for the cable show, I’ll expect the first show to be devoted entirely to Isabella, with later shows pushing the subject. My donation will be made at the end of the month after the airing. Each payment will be duly recorded as a charitable contribution, with a letter to that effect. That is my first, last, and only offer.”

The Reverend DonT. Spates gazed pensively at Crawley. Then his face turned into an enormous smile, and a freckled hand extended across the table, once more exposing the orange hairs.

“The Lord will give you value for your money, my friend.”

13

EARLY TUESDAY, BEFORE BREAKFAST, FORD SAT at the kitchen table in his casita staring at the stack of dossiers. There was no reason why having a high IQ would somehow protect you from the vicissitudes of life, but this group seemed to have more than their share of problems: difficult childhoods, dysfunctional parents, sexual identity problems, personal crises, even a few bankruptcies. Thibodeaux had been in therapy since she was twenty, diagnosed with the borderline personality disorder he’d read about before. Cecchini had gotten tangled up with a religious cult as a teenager. Edelstein had suffered bouts of depression. St. Vincent had been an alcoholic. Wardlaw had suffered from PTSD after witnessing his squad leader’s head blown off in a cave in the Tora Bora mountains. At thirty-four, Corcoran had been married and divorced—twice. Innes had been reprimanded for sleeping with patients.

Only Rae Chen didn’t seem to have anything untoward in her own background—just a first-generation Chinese-American whose family owned a restaurant. Dolby, also, seemed relatively normal, except that he’d grown up in one of the worst neighborhoods in Watts, and his brother had been paralyzed by a stray bullet in a gang shootout.

Kate’s dossier had been the most revealing of all. He read through it with a kind of sick, guilty fascination. Her father had committed suicide not long after they’d broken up—shot himself after failing in business. Her mother had then gone into a long physical decline, ending up in a nursing home at seventy, unable to recognize her own daughter. After her mother died, there was a two-year gap in the record. Kate had paid two years’ rent on her apartment in Texas and disappeared, returning two years later. It impressed the hell out of Ford that neither the FBI nor CIA could find out where she had gone or what she did. She refused to answer their questions—even at the risk of not gaining the security clearance she needed to be assistant director of the Isabella project. But Hazelius had stepped in, and the reason wasn’t hard to see—they had been having a relationship. It seemed to have been more a friendship than a passion, and it had ended amicably.

He packed away the files, disgusted at the violation of privacy, the gross intrusion of government into a person’s life, represented by the dossiers. He wondered how he could have stomached it all those years in the CIA. The monastery had changed him more than he’d realized.

He pulled out the dossier on Hazelius and opened it up. He had read it over quickly, and now he began going through it with more care. It was arranged chronologically, and Ford read it in order, visualizing the arc of the man’s life. Hazelius came from a surprisingly mundane background, an only child in a solid middle-class family of Scandinavian roots from Minnesota, father a storekeeper, mother a homemaker. They were sober, dull, churchgoing people. An unlikely environment to produce a transcendental genius. Hazelius had quickly shown himself to be a true prodigy: summa cum laude from Johns Hopkins at seventeen, doctorate from Caltech at twenty, full professor at Columbia at twenty-six, Nobel Prize at thirty.

Beyond his brilliance, the man was hard to pin down. He was not your typical narrow academic. At Columbia his students had adored him for his dry wit, playful temperament, and surprising mystical streak. He played boogiewoogie and stride piano in a band called the Quarksters at a dive on 110th Street, filling the place with worshipful undergrads. He took students to strip joints. He developed a “strange attractor” theory of the stock market and made millions before selling the system to a hedge fund.

After winning the Nobel Prize for his work on quantum entanglement, Hazelius moved easily into his role as the heir to physics superstar Richard Feynman. He published no fewer than thirty theoretical papers on the incompleteness of quantum theory, shaking the very foundations of the discipline. He won the Fields Medal in mathematics for proving Laplace’s third conjecture, the only person to have won both a Nobel and a Fields. He added a Pulitzer to his list of prizes for a book of poetry—strangely beautiful poems that mixed expressive language with mathematical equations and scientific theorems. He had set up a rescue program in India to provide medical help to girls in regions where it was customary to allow sick girls to die; the program also included subtle but intensive educational programs aimed at changing societal values about girls. He had contributed millions to a campaign to eradicate female genital mutilation in Africa. He had patented—and this Ford found comical—a better mousetrap, humane but effective.

He often appeared on Page Six of the Post, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, dressed in his trademark suits from the seventies with fat lapels and massive ties. He bragged he bought them at the Salvation Army, never paying more than five dollars. He was a regular guest on Letterman, where he could always be counted on to make outrageous un-PC pronouncements—he called them “unpleasant truths”—and wax eloquent about his utopian schemes.

At the age of thirty-two, he astonished everyone by marrying the supermodel and former Playboy bunny Astrid Gund, ten years his junior and legendary for her cheerful vacuity. She went everywhere with him, even on the television talk circuit, where he gazed at her adoringly while she chattered happily about her warm and fuzzy political opinions, once declaring famously, in a discussion of 9/11, “Gee, why can’t people just get along?”

That was bad enough. But during this period, Hazelius had said something that so outraged the zeitgeist that it became immortal, in the manner of the Beatles’ claim that they were more popular than Jesus. A reporter asked the physicist why he had married a woman “so far beneath you intellectually.” Hazelius had taken great offense. “Who would you have me marry?” he roared at the journalist. “Everyone’s beneath me intellectually! At least Astrid knows how to love, which is more than I can say for the rest of you moronic human beings.”

The smartest man in the world had dissed everyone else as morons. The uproar was enormous. The Post ran a classic headline:

HAZELIUS TO WORLD:

YOU’RE ALL MORONS

The talk-radio mobocrats and their fellow travelers worked themselves into a self-righteous fury. Hazelius was condemned from every pulpit and soapbox in America, pilloried as anti-American, antireligious, unpatriotic, a misanthrope, and a member of that most despicable of species—a sherry-sipping, ivory-tower Eastern establishment elitist.

Ford laid the papers aside and poured another cup of coffee. So far the dossier didn’t fit the Hazelius he was getting to know, who weighed his every word and acted as peacemaker, diplomat, and team leader. He had yet to hear a single political opinion from the man.

Some years ago, Hazelius had experienced a tragedy. Perhaps that had changed him. Ford skipped ahead in the file until he found it.

Ten years ago, when Hazelius was thirty-six, Astrid had dropped dead of a cerebral hemorrhage. The death devastated him. For several years he had retreated from the world into a Howard Hughes–like seclusion. Then, quite suddenly, he emerged with the plan for Isabella. He was indeed a changed man: no more talk shows, offensive statements, utopian schemes, or lost causes. He shed his society connections and dropped the ugly suits. Gregory North Hazelius had grown up.

With extraordinary skill, patience, and tact, Hazelius had pushed the Isabella project forward, enlisting allies in the science community, wooing big foundations, and courting those in power. He never missed an opportunity to remind Americans that the United States had fallen seriously behind the Europeans in nuclear physics research. He maintained that Isabella might lead to cheap solutions to the world’s energy needs—with all the patents and the know-how in American hands. With that, he had accomplished the impossible: cajoling forty billion dollars out of Congress during a time of budget deficits.

He was a consummate master at persuasion, it seemed, working quietly behind the scenes, a cautious visionary, yet willing to take a bold, calculated risk. This was the Hazelius that Ford was getting to know.

Isabella was Hazelius’s brainchild, his baby. He had traveled the country and handpicked a team from the elite ranks of physicists, engineers, and programmers. Everything had proceeded smoothly. Until now.

Ford closed the file and ruminated. He still felt he had not yet peeled back the inner layers to reveal the core human being. Genius, showman, musician, utopian dreamer, devoted husband, arrogant elitist, brilliant physicist, patient lobbyist. Which was the real man? Or was there a shadowy figure behind them all, manipulating the masks?

Parts of Hazelius’s life weren’t so different from his own. They had both lost their wives in horrifying ways. When Ford’s wife had died, the world as he knew it had blown up with her, leaving him wandering in the ruins. But Hazelius had reacted in the opposite way: his wife’s death seemed to have focused him. Ford had lost the meaning in his life; Hazelius found his.

He wondered how his own dossier would read. He had no doubt it existed—and that Lockwood had read it, just as he was reading theirs. How would it look? Child of privilege, Choate, Harvard, MIT, CIA, marriage. And then: Bomb.

After Bomb, what then? Monastery. And finally, Advanced Security and Intelligence, Inc., the name of his new investigation company. It suddenly seemed pretentious. Who was he kidding? He’d hung out his shingle four months ago and he’d gotten one assignment. Admittedly, it was a plum job, but then there were special reasons why he’d been chosen. And he couldn’t put it on his résumé.

He glanced at the clock: he was late for breakfast, and he was wasting time with self-pitying musings.

Shoving the dossier in the briefcase, he locked it and headed out toward the dining hall. The sun had just risen over the red bluffs, and the light was shooting through the leaves of the cottonwoods, setting them aglow like shards of green and yellow glass.

The dining hall was rich with the smell of cinnamon buns and bacon. Hazelius was seated in his accustomed place at the head of the table, deep in conversation with Innes. Kate sat at the other end, near Wardlaw, pouring herself coffee.

At the sight of her, Ford felt a twist in his gut.

He took the last empty seat next to Hazelius and helped himself to scrambled eggs and bacon off the platter.

“Morning,” said Hazelius. “Sleep well?”

“Never better.”

Everyone was there except Volkonsky.

“Say, where’s Peter?” Ford ventured. “I didn’t see his car in the driveway.”

Conversation trickled into silence.

“Dr. Volkonsky seems to have left us,” said Wardlaw.

“Left? Why?”

At first, no one spoke. Then, in an unnaturally loud voice, Innes said, “As the team psychologist, I can perhaps shed light on that question. Without violating any professional confidences, I think I can say without contradiction that Peter was never happy here. He had a hard time adjusting to the isolation and stressful schedule. He missed his wife and child back at Brookhaven. It’s no surprise he decided to go.”

“You said he seems to have left?”

Hazelius answered smoothly. “His car’s gone, his suitcase and most of his clothes are missing—that was our assumption.”

“He didn’t say anything to anyone?”

“You seem alarmed, Wyman,” said Hazelius, peering at him rather markedly.

Ford stopped. He was getting ahead of himself, and a man as observant as Hazelius wasn’t likely to miss it.

“Not alarmed,” said Ford. “Just surprised.”

“I could see this coming for some time, I’m afraid,” said Hazelius. “Peter wasn’t cut out for this kind of life. I’m sure we’ll hear from him when he gets home. Now Wyman, tell us how your visit went with Begay yesterday.”

Everyone turned to listen.

“Begay’s angry. He has a list of complaints against the Isabella project.”

“Such as?”

“Let’s just say that a lot of promises were made that weren’t kept.”

“We made no promises to anybody,” said Hazelius.

“It appears the DOE promised all kinds of jobs and economic benefits.”

Hazelius shook his head disgustedly. “I don’t control the DOE. Did you at least manage to talk him out of this protest ride?”

“No.”

Hazelius frowned. “I hope you can do something to head this off.”

“It may be better to let it happen.”

“Wyman, the slightest whiff of trouble could make national news,” said Hazelius. “We can’t afford bad publicity.”

Ford gazed steadily at Hazelius. “You’ve been holed up here on the mesa, engaged in a secret government project, avoiding all contact with the locals—naturally there would be rumors and suspicion. What in the world did you expect?” It came out a little sharper than he intended.

Everyone stared at him, as if he had just cursed the priest. But they relaxed as Hazelius slowly relaxed. “All right, I’d say I deserved that rebuke. Fair enough. Perhaps we haven’t handled this as well as we could have. So . . . what’s the next step?”

“I’m going to pay a friendly visit to the local Navajo chapter president at Blue Gap, see if I can set up a sort of town meeting with the locals. Which you will attend.”

“If I can spare the time.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to spare the time.”

Hazelius waved his hand. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“I’d like to take a scientist with me today, too.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“Kate Mercer.”

Hazelius looked around. “Kate? You don’t have anything going today, do you?”

Kate’s face flushed. “I’m busy.”

“If Kate can’t, I’ll go,” said Melissa Corcoran, tossing her hair with a smile. “I’d love to get the hell off this godforsaken mesa for a few hours.”

Ford glanced at Kate and back at Corcoran. He felt reluctant to tell them he’d rather not show up at Blue Gap with a six-foot, blue-eyed, blond Anglo bombshell. At least Kate, with her black hair and half-Asian face, looked almost Indian.

“Are you really all that busy, Kate?” Hazelius asked. “You said you’d almost completed the new black hole calculations. This is important—and you are, after all, the assistant director.”

Kate glanced at Corcoran with an inscrutable expression. Corcoran returned the glance coldly.

“I suppose I could finish the black hole stuff later,” said Kate.

“Great,” Ford said. “I’ll swing by your place with the Jeep in an hour.” He headed for the door, feeling strangely elated.

As he passed Corcoran, she cast him a sideways smirk. “Next time,” she said.

BACK IN THE CASITA, FORD LOCKED the door, took the briefcase into the bedroom, drew the curtains, removed the sat phone, and dialed Lockwood.

“Hello, Wyman. Got any news?”

“You know the scientist, Peter Volkonsky, the software engineer?”

“Yes.”

“He disappeared last night. His car’s gone, and they say he packed up his clothes. Can you find out if he’s showed up or contacted anyone?”

“We’ll try.”

“I need to know ASAP.”

“I’ll call you right back.”

“A couple of other things.”

“Shoot.”

“Michael Cecchini—his dossier says he joined a religious cult as a teenager. I’d like to know more about that.”

“Will do. Anything else?”

“Rae Chen. She seems . . . How can I put it? Too normal.”

“That’s not much to go on.”

“Look into her background, see if there’s something odd there.”

Ten minutes later the ring light blinked. Ford pushed the RECEIVE button and Lockwood’s voice came on, considerably more tense. “Regarding Volkonsky, we called his wife, his colleagues at Brookhaven—nobody’s heard from him. You say he left last night? At what time?”

“I’m guessing sometime about nine.”

“We’re putting out an APB on his car and plate. It’s a forty-hour drive back to his home in New York State. If he’s headed that way, we’ll find him. Did something happen?”

“I ran into him yesterday. He’d spent the entire night at Isabella and he’d been drinking. He was full of forced hilarity. He said to me, ‘Before, I worry. Now I am fine.’ But he looked the opposite of fine.”

“Any idea what he meant by that?”

“None.”

“I want you to search his quarters.”

A hesitation. “I’ll do it tonight.”

Ford cradled the receiver and looked at the cottonwood trees outside the window. Lying, spying, deceiving, and now breaking and entering. A fine way to launch his first year out of the monastery.

14

FORD TOOK IN BLUE GAP, ARIZONA, with a single sweep of his eyes. It lay in a dusty basin surrounded by rimrock and the gray skeletons of dead piñons. The town was little more than a pair of intersecting dirt roads, asphalted a hundred yards from their point of intersection. There was a gas station of adobe-colored cinder block and a convenience store with a cracked window. Plastic grocery bags flapped like banners from the barbed-wire fence behind the gas station. Next to the convenience store stood a small middle school building surrounded by a chain-link fence. To the east and north, two grids of HUD housing had been laid out in rigid symmetry in the red dirt.

In the near distance, the purple silhouette of Red Mesa formed a towering backdrop.

“So,” said Kate as the Jeep reached the pavement, “what’s your plan?”

“Get gas.”

“Gas? The tank’s half-full, and we get all the free gas we need back at Isabella.”

“Just follow my lead, will you?”

He pulled into the gas station, got out, and filled up. Then he tapped on Kate’s window. “Got any money?” he asked.

She looked at him with alarm. “I didn’t bring my purse.”

“Good.”

They went in. A large Navajo woman stood behind the counter. A few other customers—all Navajo—were browsing in the store.

Ford picked out a pack of gum, a Coke, a bag of chips, and the Navajo Times. He strolled to the counter, plunked them down. The woman rang them up with the gas.

Ford dipped into his pocket, and his expression changed. He made a show of looking through his pockets.

“Damn. Forgot my wallet.” He glanced at Mercer. “You got any money?”

She glared. “You know I don’t.”

Ford spread his hands and smiled sheepishly at the lady behind the counter. “I forgot my wallet.”

She returned the gaze, unmoved. “You have to pay. At least for the gas.”

“How much is it?”

“Eighteen fifty.”

Again he made a great show of searching his pockets. The other customers had stopped to listen.

“Can you believe it? I don’t have a dime on me. I’m really sorry.”

A heavy silence followed. “I got to collect the money,” the woman said.

“I’m sorry. I really am. Listen, I’ll go home and get my wallet and come straight back. I promise. Gosh, I feel like such an idiot.”

“I can’t let you go without collecting the money,” said the woman. “It’s my job.”

A small, skinny, restless-looking man in a dun cowboy hat, motorcycle boots, and shoulder-length jet-black hair strode forward and slid out a battered wallet on a chain from his jean’s pocket. “Doris? This’ll take care of it.” He spoke grandly and handed her a twenty.

Ford turned to the man. “That’s damn nice of you. I’ll pay you back.”

“ ‘Course you will, don’t worry about it. Next time you come, just give Doris the money. Someday you’ll return the favor, right?” He cocked his hand, winked, and pointed a finger at Ford.

“You bet.” Ford held out his hand. “Wyman Ford.”

“Willy Becenti.” Willy grasped his hand.

“You’re a good man, Willy.”

“Damn right about that! Isn’t that so, Doris? Best man in Blue Gap.”

Doris rolled her eyes.

“This is Kate Mercer,” said Ford.

“Hey, Kate, how’s it going?” Becenti grasped her hand, bowed, and kissed it like a lord.

“We were looking for the chapter house,” said Ford. “We want to see the chapter president. Is he around?”

“You mean ‘she.’ Maria Atcitty. Hell, yeah. Chapter house is down that road there. Take your last right before it turns to dirt. It’s the old wooden building with the tin roof right next to the water tower. Say hi to her for me.”

As they drove out of the gas station, Ford said, “That trick never fails on the Rez. Navajos are the most generous people in the world.”

“For cynical manipulation you get an A-plus.”

“It’s for a good cause.”

“Well, he did look like a bit of a hustler himself. What do you bet he charges interest?”

They pulled into the parking lot of the chapter house, next to a row of dusty pickups. On the front door someone had taped up one of Begay’s notices for the protest ride. Another fluttered from a nearby telephone pole.

They asked for the chapter president. A neat, solid woman in a turquoise blouse and brown dress pants appeared.

They shook hands and introduced themselves.

“Willy Becenti said to say hi.”

“You know Willy?” She seemed surprised—and pleased.

“In a way.” Ford gave a sheepish laugh. “He loaned me twenty bucks.”

Atcitty shook her head. “Good old Willy. He’d give his last twenty to some bum, then stick up a convenience store to reimburse himself. Come on in and have a cup of coffee.”

At a coffeepot on the counter they collected mugs of weak Navajo coffee, then followed Atcitty into a small office heaped with paper.

“So, what can I do for you folks?” she said with a big smile.

“Well, I almost hate to admit this, but we’re from the Isabella project.”

Her smile faded. “I see.”

“Kate’s the assistant director of the Isabella project, and I’ve just arrived as the community liaison.”

Atcitty said nothing.

“Ms. Atcitty, I know people are wondering what the heck is going on up there.”

“You’ve got that just about right.”

“I need your help. If you can get people together here at the chapter house—say, some evening this week—I’ll bring Gregory North Hazelius down in person so he can answer questions and explain what we’re doing.”

A long silence, then, “This week is too soon. Make it next week. Wednesday.”

“Excellent. Things are going to change. From now on, we’ll be doing some of our shopping down here and over at Rough Rock. We’ll gas up our cars down here, buy our groceries and supplies.”

“Wyman, I really don’t think—,” Mercer began, but he stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“That would help,” said Atcitty.

They rose and shook hands.

As the Jeep left Blue Gap behind in a cloud of dust, Mercer turned to Ford. “Wednesday next week is too late to stop the ride.”

“I have no intention of stopping the ride.”

“If you think we’re going to shop in that store and eat Doritos, mutton, and canned beans for dinner, you’re crazy. And the gas down there costs a fortune.”

“This isn’t New York or Washington,” said Ford. “This is rural Arizona, and these people are your neighbors. You need to get out and show them you’re not a bunch of mad scientists about to destroy the world. And they could use the business.”

She shook her head.

“Kate,” Ford said, “what happened to all your progressive notions? Your sympathy for the poor and downtrodden?”

“Don’t you lecture me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but you need lecturing. You’ve become a member of the big bad establishment and you don’t even know it.” He concluded with a little laugh, trying to keep it light, but only too late realized he’d scored a direct hit on her feelings.

She stared at him, white-lipped, then looked out the window. They drove up the Dugway in silence and headed down the long blacktop road for the Isabella project.

Halfway across the mesa, Ford slowed the Jeep and squinted through the windshield.

“Now what?”

“That’s quite a column of buzzards.”

“So?”

He stopped the car and pointed. “Look. Fresh tire tracks going off the road to the west—right toward those vultures.”

She wouldn’t look.

“I’m going to check it out.”

“Swell. I’m already going to be up half the night doing calculations.”

He parked in the shade of a juniper and followed the tracks, his feet crunching in the crusty dirt. It was still blazing hot, as the ground gave up the heat it had sucked in all day. In the distance, a coyote slunk away, carrying something in its mouth.

After ten minutes, Ford came to the edge of a deep, narrow arroyo and looked down. A car rested at the bottom, upside down. Buzzards were perched in a dead piñon, waiting. A second coyote had his head stuck through the broken windshield, jerking and pulling at something. When it saw Ford, it let go and ran off, its bloody tongue dangling.

Ford climbed down the sandstone boulders toward the car, holding his shirt over his nose to soften the stench of death, which mingled with a strong smell of gasoline. The buzzards rose in a flapping, awkward mass. He crouched and peered inside the smashed interior.

A body was jammed sideways on the seat. The eyes and lips were gone. One arm, flung out toward the broken window, had been stripped of flesh and was missing its hand. Despite the damage, the body was recognizable.

Volkonsky.

Ford remained very still, his eyes taking in every detail. He backed away, careful not to disturb anything, turned, and scrambled up the side of the arroyo. When he could, he took several slow, deep breaths of fresh air, then jogged back toward the road. In the distance, silhouetted against a rise, he could see the two coyotes yipping and squabbling over a floppy chunk of meat.

He reached the car and leaned in the open window. Resentment etched Kate’s face.

“It’s Volkonsky,” he said. “I’m sorry, Kate . . . . He’s dead.”

She blinked, gasped. “Oh my God . . . You’re sure?”

He nodded.

Her lip twitched. Then, in a hoarse voice, “Accident?”

“No.”

Swallowing a feeling of nausea, Ford slipped his cell phone out of his back pocket and dialed 911.

15

LOCKWOOD ENTERED THE OVAL OFFICE, HIS shoes soundless on the thick carpet. As always, being so close to the still point of power in the turning world gave him a thrill.

The president of the United States came around from behind his desk, hand outstretched, giving him a real politician’s welcome.

“Stanton! Good to see you. How’s Betsy and the kids?”

“Just great, thank you, Mr. President.”

While continuing to clasp his hand, the president grasped Lockwood’s forearm and directed him to the chair closest to the desk. Lockwood sat, placing the file on his knees. Through the east-facing windows, he could see the Rose Garden settling into a mellow late-summer twilight. The president’s chief of staff, Roger Morton, entered and occupied another chair, while the president’s secretary, Jean, was ensconced in the third, ready to take notes the old-fashioned way, with a steno pad.

A heavy man in a dark blue suit entered and settled himself in the nearest chair without invitation. He was Gordon Galdone, chairman of the president’s reelection campaign. Lockwood couldn’t abide the man. He was everywhere these days, in every meeting, ubiquitous. Nothing was decided, nothing happened, without his blessing.

The president resumed his own seat behind the desk. “All right, Stan, you begin.”

“Yes, Mr. President.” Lockwood took out a folder. “Are you familiar with a televangelist by the name of Don T. Spates? He runs an operation out of Virginia Beach called God’s Prime Time Ministry.”

“You mean the fellow caught cornholing those two prostitutes?”

A gentlemanly chuckle rippled through the room. The president, a former trial lawyer from the South, was well known for his colorful vocabulary.

“Yes sir, that’s the one. He brought up the subject of the Isabella project in his Sunday sermon on the Christian Cable Service. He went on a real tear. His line was that the government has spent forty billion taxpayer dollars trying to disprove Genesis.”

“The Isabella project has nothing to do with Genesis.”

“Of course. The problem is, he seems to have touched a nerve. I understand a number of senators and congressmen are getting e-mails and phone calls. Now our office is, too. It’s big enough that it may require some kind of response.”

The president turned to his chief of staff. “Is it showing up on your radar, Roger?”

“Almost twenty thousand e-mails logged so far, ninety-six percent opposed.”

“Twenty thousand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lockwood glanced at Galdone. The man’s slab of a face betrayed nothing. Galdone’s game was to wait and speak last. Lockwood hated people who did that.

“It’s worth pointing out,” said Lockwood, “that fifty-two percent of Americans don’t believe in evolution—and among self-identified Republicans, it’s sixty-eight percent. This attack on Isabella is an extension of that. It could get partisan—and ugly.”

“Where’d you get those figures?”

“A Gallup poll.”

The president shook his head. “We stay on message. The Isabella project is a crucial part of keeping American science and technology competitive in the world. After years of lagging, we’ve pulled ahead of the Europeans and Japanese. The Isabella project is good for the economy, good for R and D, good for business. It may solve our energy needs, free us from dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Stan, issue a press release to that effect, organize a press conference, make some noise. Stay on message.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Galdone’s turn had come. He heaved his bulk about in the chair. “If good news were flowing from the Isabella project, we wouldn’t be so vulnerable.” He turned to Lockwood. “Can you tell us, Dr. Lockwood, when the problems out there will be fixed?”

“In a week or less,” he said. “We’ve got a good handle on it.”

“A week is a long time,” Galdone said, “when you’ve got a man like Spates beating his tom-toms and oiling his guns.”

Lockwood winced at the mixed metaphor. “Mr. Galdone, let me assure you we’re doing everything we can.”

Galdone’s suetlike face moved as he spoke. “One week,” he said, his voice heavy with disapproval.

Lockwood heard a voice at the door to the Oval Office, and his heart just about stopped to see his own assistant being ushered in. It would have to be something big to interrupt him in a meeting with the president. She came ducking along with almost comic obsequiousness, handed Lockwood a note, and exited swiftly. With a feeling of dread, he unfolded the note.

He tried to swallow and couldn’t. For a moment he contemplated saying nothing, then changed his mind: better now than later. “Mr. President, I’ve received word that one of the Isabella project scientists has just been found dead in a ravine on Red Mesa. It got called into the FBI about thirty minutes ago. Agents are on their way to the scene.”

“Dead? How?”

“Shot—in the head.”

The president stared at him without speaking. Lockwood had never seen his face flush so deeply, and it frightened him.

16

BY THE TIME THE NAVAJO TRIBAL Police arrived, Ford had watched the sun disappear in a swirl of bourbon-colored clouds. Four squad cars and a van came humming down the shimmering asphalt, lights flashing, and pulled up, each with a perfectly calibrated squeal of rubber.

A barrel-chested Navajo detective got out of the lead car. He was gaunt, about sixty, with a grizzled crew cut, followed by a cadre of Navajo Nation policemen. Wearing a pair of dusty cowboy boots, he walked with bow legs down the tire tracks toward the rim of the arroyo, followed by his people, and they began setting up the perimeter of the crime scene and stringing tape.

Hazelius and Wardlaw arrived in a Jeep, pulling it off the road and getting out. They watched the police work in silence, and then Wardlaw turned to Ford. “You say he was shot?”

“Point-blank to the left temple.”

“How do you know?”

“Significant powder tattooing.”

Wardlaw regarded him, his eyes hard and narrow with suspicion. “You watch a lot of CSI on television, Mr. Ford? Or you just make a hobby of crime-scene investigation?”

The Navajo detective, having secured the site, creaked toward them, voice recorder in hand. He walked with great deliberation, as if every movement hurt. His badge read BIA, and his rank was lieutenant. He wore mirrored wraparound sunglasses that made him look dopey. Ford sensed that he was anything but dumb.

“Who discovered the victim?” Bia asked.

“I did.”

The glasses turned toward him. “Your name?”

“Wyman Ford.” He heard suspicion in the man’s tone, as if the lies had already begun.

“How’d you find him?”

Ford described the circumstances.

“So you saw the buzzards, saw the tracks, just decided to get out and walk a quarter mile across the desert in the hundred-degree heat to investigate—just like that?”

Ford nodded.

“Hmm.” Bia scribbled some notes, his lips pursed. Then the glasses turned toward Hazelius. “And you are—?”

“Gregory North Hazelius, director of the Isabella project, and this is Senior Intelligence Officer Wardlaw. Will you be in charge of the investigation?”

“Only on the tribal side. The FBI will lead on this one.”

“The FBI? When will they be here?”

Bia nodded toward the sky. “Now.”

A chopper materialized in the southwest, the thwap of its rotors growing steadily louder. A few hundred yards away, it came into a hover in a storm of dust, then settled down on the road. Two men stepped out. Both wore sunglasses, open-necked short-sleeved shirts, and baseball caps with FBI stitched across the front. Despite their differing skin color and heights, they could almost have been twins.

They marched over, and the tall one pulled out his shield. “Special Agent in Charge Dan Greer,” he said, “Flagstaff Field Office. Special Agent Franklin Alvarez.” He slipped the shield back into his pocket and nodded at Bia. “Lieutenant.”

Bia nodded back.

Hazelius stepped forward. “And I’m Gregory North Hazelius, director of the Isabella project.” He shook Greer’s hand. “The victim was a scientist on my team. I want to know what happened here, and I want to know now.”

“And you will. As soon as our investigation is complete.” Greer turned to Bia. “Site secure?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now listen up: I’m going to ask everyone from the Isabella project to please return to their base. Dr. Hazelius, I’d like you to gather everyone at some central meeting place at . . .” He looked at the sky, then his watch. “Seven o’clock. I’ll be there to take everyone’s statement.”

“I’m sorry to say that won’t be possible,” said Hazelius. “We can’t spare everyone all at once. You’ll have to take our statements in two shifts.”